STAY IN THE CAR
by The Handsome Barbarian
Summary: Chuck doesn't stay in the car and is captured by the Russian mafia. Sarah doesn't handle it very well. No explicit torture, but it is mentioned and implied. Mild language. Rating because I'm a paranoid little barbarian.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey! I'm new here and this is my first story, so please be nice. I try to keep as many grammar errors as possible out of my writing, but please tell me if I missed anything. This story is somewhere in between the second-to-last and last episodes of season 2. I haven't gone much further yet, so some things may be inaccurate for all of you who have finished the series. Still, please enjoy!**

Chuck's eyes opened slowly. He became slowly aware of an ache in his shoulders and in his wrists. He blinked and looked round. The room was dark, and he couldn't see much of anything. He shifted slightly, and discovered that he couldn't move his arms. His hands were bound behind his back, pressing up uncomfortably against the metal back of his chair. He twisted his wrists experimentally, but the coarse rope was too tight for that to do anything.

He couldn't tell where he was because of the darkness of the room, and he had no idea how long he had been there. He suddenly realized that he was shivering from the cold air that was hitting his exposed skin. Which there was a lot of. Chuck looked down (although he knew it was completely useless, given the amount of light there was) and realized that his white button-down was gone. He cursed. That was his best shirt and tie. _At least I still have my shoes on_.

His white undershirt was still on also, but it was made of thin material and was almost too small for him. _I would choose today to wear this undershirt. Just my luck._ It felt like the temperature was near freezing.

Chuck grimaced as he thought about the events that had occurred previously, before he woke up in this room. "Why didn't I stay in the car?" he muttered to himself. The group had been on the trail of a Russian mafia boss named Mikhail Pozdnyakov and his cronies. Casey and Sarah had gone into a hotel as a maid and a servant to try to plant some bugs in some targets' rooms. Sarah was targeting a member of the Russian mob, while Casey tracked down one of his co-workers, if that's even what you call two mafia members.

As usual, Chuck was left behind to watch the cameras and warn of impending doom, which rarely seemed to occur on these simple types of missions. Regardless of how he felt about it, he had promised Sarah that he would stay right where he was, and he had had every intention of keeping his word.

That flew out the window when he flashed on the mafia's ringleader walking past him. He had tried to call Sarah or Casey, but Casey ignored him and Sarah was too busy talking her way past some guards to listen.

So, Chuck did possibly the stupidest thing he possibly could have in that situation: he got out of the car and talked to the guy. He guessed that he did a pretty bad job of acting casual, because this is where he ended up, in a dark room tied to a chair. Typical spy problems.

Chuck berated himself. _You should have listened to Sarah and stayed in the car, you idiot! When has leaving the safety of the van ever accomplished anything except almost getting yourself killed?_

Who was he kidding? The only reason he ever left the car was to try to prove himself to his handlers. He was doing a bang-up job of it, too. Getting captured every other week is a pretty impressive feat. He wondered absently if Sarah had saved him more often than Casey or not. Honestly, she probably had, because she cared more about keeping the asset safe than Casey did. He would always rush off and get the guy with the guns, while Sarah actually got him out of there, wherever "there" was. It was becoming a pretty regular routine, for better or for worse. At least they generally seemed to get the bad guy this way.

Chuck's thoughts were interrupted by a loud banging from the other side of a wall in front of him. It slowly got louder, and Chuck swallowed hard. He struggled in vain to slip one of his wrists out of the rope, but it was way too tight. He shifted again, trying to get circulation going in his arms. The banging outside the door stopped, and everything was quiet. _Too quiet,_ Chuck thought melodramatically. He smiled at his own joke and chuckled a little. In all honesty, he didn't find it all that funny, but it was something to get his mind off his imminent death.

A door slid open in front of him with a soft hiss, and Chuck peered into the open doorway apprehensively. The small smile on his face melted away, and he gulped loudly. He could make out the silhouettes of two men in the doorway. One was rather slender and maybe about six feet tall, maybe a bit under. However tall he was, Chuck knew that he would tower over the guy if he could stand.

The other man, Chuck wasn't quite so sure. He looked huge and almost filled the entire doorway himself. All of Chuck's courage and resolve to withstand whatever was coming his way seemed to just quietly slip away.

The smaller man reached to his right and flicked on a switch. The sudden light almost blinded Chuck, who yelled and squeezed his eyes shut. The man chuckled. "Charles Bartowski, I resume?" There was a pause, and Chuck heard him move closer. "You aren't quite as… well, intimidating as I expected you to be. After all, working with both the CIA and the NSA is no small task." He had a heavy Russian accent and a low voice, which did wonders for his own intimidating factor.

Chuck opened his eyes into a squint. The light still burned his eyes, but he was able to make out the man's face. Chuck's eyes widened, and he recognized the man he had flashed on outside the hotel. He was Dmitri Andreyev, a member of the mafia that the CIA had been tracking for three years. He was suspected of the murder of over two dozen people in both Russia and America. Chuck had no idea what he was doing in LA, talking to him, but whatever it was, it couldn't be good.

When he saw the face of the other man, he flashed instantly. Iosif Lavrentyev. He was another member of the same mafia, albeit a lower member. He did the grunt work when needed, and was also suspected of several murders and smuggling weapons across the border. His victims always came back in mutilated pieces. When the flash ended, Chuck smiled nervously. "Wow, you two," he said. "You are quite the pair of baddies, aren't you?"

Iosif cracked his knuckles menacingly, but Dmitri smiled. "Ah. You are one of those agents who tries to talk his way out of bad situations, yes?" He pulled a knife out of his waistband and looked it over lovingly. "I do enjoy your type more than the strong, stubborn kind, like your handler. Casey is his name, correct? Always grunting all the time. Is quite annoying."

Chuck frowned. "You know Casey? How-"

Dmitri flipped the knife in his hand. "I have been in this business much longer than you have, 'Agent Carmichael'. Your John Casey does get around."

Chuck tilted his head away from the knife slightly. "Well, you see, you've got this all wrong. I'm not actually a spy, persay. I'm just someone who knows that spies and things exist so if you could just let me go that would be great I wouldn't tell anyone I promise _please don't hurt me!_ " He sped up at the end as Dmitri's knife got closer to his face.

Dmitri cocked his head. "I know you aren't a spy, Chuck. Your pretty little 'girlfriend' is a CIA agent, and, well, I knew about Agent Casey from the start. They must be protecting someone important if the CIA and NSA are actually working together on something. The question is, what could possibly be so important that they both have to have a hand in protecting it? What were they hiding? We knew that whatever it was would be nearby, so we let them into that hotel, hoping they would let something slip. You just happened to be in their van, which we wouldn't have known if you hadn't decided to take a walk. We had already been searching for you for a day or two, and you just walk right into our hands. So, I suppose we have you to thank for this." Dmitri's voice was dangerously calm. "And you can leave whenever you wish-"

"Oh, that's just wonderful because I would really like to go now and your friend is giving me the creeps."

"-if you cooperate."

Chuck cursed under his breath. How could he have been so stupid? If he had just stayed put, they wouldn't have found him and he wouldn't be in this situation. "Are you sure? Because I know absolutely nothing, nothing at all, I'm useless, just ask Casey."

Dmitri paused. "I like you, Chuck. That's why I will give you one more chance."

"One more chance at what?" Chuck was indignant. "You haven't asked me anything!"

"Where is the Intersect?"

There was a silence as Chuck finally shut his mouth. He wasn't sure how much longer he could stall this before Dmitri finally lost his patience and let Iosif do his thing. Dmitri didn't move for another five seconds, then he sighed and pulled back. "Very well, Chuck. I didn't want to do this." He gave Chuck a menacing grin. "Well, it's a good thing I don't have to. Iosif?"

The massive man grunted and stepped forward. "Iosif," Dmitri said. "I am done here."

Iosif bared his teeth in what was his version of a smile, and Chuck realized that he was about to be left alone in a small room with a maniac. "No!" he shouted desperately. "No! There's no need to do that! Maybe we could just talk it over with some coffee, I know this great place that's just a few blocks down from where I work. Or maybe some frozen yogurt, everyone loves frozen yogurt."

Dmitri turned back to him. "Where is the Intersect?" Another loud silence. Chuck swallowed, but he wouldn't say anything. He knew that revealing the identity of the Intersect would lead to worse things than Iosif, such as world-wide domination and other things like that. He thought of Sarah, and how she would never break, no matter what she was threatened with. He thought of how he was always the one who broke under pressure, and how he always got her into dangerous situations trying to save him. _Sarah wouldn't give in,_ Chuck thought. _I won't either._

He couldn't help but remember M16 Agent Cole and how impressed Sarah was when he survived torture. While he was getting whipped, Chuck passed out at the sight of a needle and whacked his head on the ground. Sure, that's what Sarah had told him to do, but it was far from heroic. Cole was everything Chuck wasn't: brave, an actual agent, smooth, impressively muscled, quite intimidating, with a pain tolerance level of over 1. He even had a sexy accent. Chuck knew this, but seeing him kiss Sarah had hurt him more than he cared to admit, and he was determined to do something that she would appreciate. He would say nothing, no matter how many needles Iosif might have.

"No one is going to come save you, Chuck," Dmitri said. He pulled something out of his pocket, a twisted lump of metal and leather that Chuck recognized as his watch. A watch which used to have a CIA tracker in it. _Damn it!_

Chuck desperately tried to think of some way to postpone the torture. Sarah and Casey had to be getting closer. "Why do you even want to know who the Intersect is? I mean, really, two big old mafia men like you don't need that old computer. I'm sure it's out of date by now and completely useless to you. Just leave it to the government to know where it is and you can just go back to your regularly appointed illegal smuggling and murders." He kept talking, going on and on like he was prone to do when he was nervous. He wasn't even sure what he was saying half the time. All he knew was that he didn't want any large needles coming anywhere near him. Or any other weapon, for that matter.

Dmitri sighed again and cut him off. "Very well." He turned and moved toward the door. Chuck struggled to suppress the overwhelming urge to call out after him and announce that he was the Intersect, that there was no need to hurt him because he would tell them everything. It was cowardly, but Chuck had some silly thing that's called the will to live.

He wanted to be able to play the newest games with Morgan before they were actually released and talk for hours about the best choice of sandwich on a desert island. He wanted to see Ellie's and Awesome's children. He just wanted to see his sister one more time and tell her that he loved her, that she was the best sister he could have ever asked for. He wanted to see Casey again and hear his rare happy grunt one more time. Even his more common grunt of annoyance would have been enough.

He wanted to see Sarah, and tell her something that he hadn't had the guts to say before. He wanted to see her crystal blue eyes and make her smile that beautiful smile one more time. And now, he would probably never get the chance.

Dmitri walked out the door and shut it behind him, leaving Iosif alone with Chuck. Chuck looked up at him, his eyes wide. Iosif bared his yellow teeth again and walked to the left of the chair. There was some rattling of metal, and Iosif moved back into sight, wheeling in front of him a metal table. On said metal table was an impressive array of blades and other devices that looked suspiciously like torture instruments.

"Um," Chuck said hesitantly. "Are those- what are those?"

Iosif looked at Chuck disdainfully and said in a low, heavily-accented growl, "Any real spy should be able to recognize a torture session in the making."

"Wow, you are very up-front with that information," Chuck said quietly in reply. "Are you sure that you need to do this?"

"Maybe I do not need to," Iosif conceded. Chuck's eyebrows raised. That was much easier than he expected. But as he opened his mouth to say something, Iosif continued, "But I want to."

"Oh," Chuck squeaked. Iosif's hand hovered over the knifes and finally picked one up. It wasn't nearly as big as some of the others on the table, but it had a wicked edge on it and gleamed in the artificial light. He walked up to Chuck's chair and crouched so that he was eye-level with him.

"Where is the Intersect?" he asked slowly, as if speaking to a child. Chuck said nothing, although he might have whimpered. "Typical. Always trying to be a hero. Stupid spies," Iosif grumbled. "No one is coming to help you, Agent. Now, I would appreciate it if you would stay still. You wouldn't want me to miss and accidentally slice open a vein, now, would you? Bleeding out would be so much less interesting to watch."

The knife lowered onto Chuck's skin, and his screams echoed through the walls.

 **AH! I ALMOST FORGOT!**

 **ahem**

 **Disclaimer: I own nothing in this story. All I have are the clothes on my back, whatever is in my room and a surprising amount of cats.**


	2. Chapter 2

**All right, here's Part 2. I hope y'all enjoy it as much as you enjoyed Part 1. Speaking of, any support really helps. When I see that someone has reviewed or followed, I immediately want to start writing again, so reviews will in effect help you finish this story quicker. I'm sorry if I seem a little hard on Chuck, but this is what I think would be going through his head if this happened. He has never really understood how much he helps the team, at least thus far in the show. (And it is kind of his fault he got captured…) This isn't what I think of him, personally. I think he's** _ **way**_ **better than Cole Barkman, but he obviously didn't in the few episodes we have with them.**

 **Y'all's reviews have really blown me away. I just hope I can live up to your expectations, now that you've liked the first part so much. Suddenly, there's a lot more pressure to perform. Oh well, I'm an actor. I'm used to it.**

 **Enough of this. On with the story!**

 _3 hours earlier..._

Sarah pulled her wrist to her mouth and said into her watch, "Casey, are you finished?"

A second of silence, then she heard, "Yeah. I'm heading out right now."

"Good. I'll be right there." She lowered her hand and began to walk quickly toward the elevator, leaving her room service cart behind her in the hallway. She had to resist the urge to pull off her black wig. It was uncomfortable, hot, and itchy, but she couldn't until she left the hotel.

As she waited for the elevator to make it's way up seven floors, she realized that she hadn't heard any running commentary from Chuck almost the entire mission. _He probably fell asleep,_ she thought.

The elevator door finally opened and a man came out She took his place and talked into her watch again. "Chuck? Hey, are you there?"

"Of course he's there." She heard Casey grumble. "Where else would he be?"

"Oh, I don't know. He's just been kind of quiet ever since this whole thing began."

Casey grunted. "Huh. You're right. Chuck, wake up!" He shouted, and Sarah flinched at the sudden loud noise.  
"I can hear you too, Casey," she said, exasperated.

"I know."

Sarah rolled her eyes. The elevator doors opened with a ding, and she walked out quickly. She gave the man behind the counter a quick smile as she passed, hoping he wouldn't question why a maid was leaving in the middle of the day, when she should have been working. Thankfully, her blinding smile left him a little too dazed to ask why he was leaving.

She pushed through the doors and walked quickly toward the car. "Are you out here yet, Casey?"

"No. Got caught by some whining customer."

Sarah stopped. "You didn't hurt him, did you?"

"Of course not. What do you take me for, a brute?" Sarah didn't answer. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Walker."

"No problem." Sarah saw the black van where Chuck was and sped up a little. "I bet Chuck fell asleep again. At least there's no real trouble like there was last time this happened."

Casey grunted again. "Yeah, good thing there's no chance of one of us getting shot and killed or wounded by some madmen with guns, right? It's not like we're infiltrating the hotel rooms of the mafia."

"The sarcasm is not appreciated, Casey." He didn't respond, and Sarah shook her head. She knew Casey was normally like this, but sometimes she wished that he could lay off on the cynicism a little. "Chuck?" she called out as she neared the van. "There's still a chance that you can wake up and convince us that you're just being quiet."

He didn't respond, and Sarah sighed in amusement. "Right. Come on, Casey. We need to get going."

"I'm coming, Walker. God, you're so impatient."

Sarah pulled open the door and climbed in, pulling off her black wig as she did so. She looked up, arm lifted, ready to shake Chuck awake, but there was no one in the van with her. A chill ran up her spine. "Damn it," she muttered. "Damn it, damn it, damn it!"

"What is it, Walker? I'm almost there. I don't think I've ever heard you curse so much at one time since that run in with-"

"Casey!" she said, trying not to panic. "Chuck isn't here."

A pause. "WHAT!"

"He's not here." Sarah swallowed, trying to keep the raging emotions she felt out of her voice. "He must have left the car for some reason."

Casey suddenly appeared in the open door of the van and slammed his fist against the wall. "Why would he have left the car?" he said, obviously trying not to scream at her. "We told him specifically not to leave the car. And what does he do? He leaves the car. Of course. I mean, there's no danger or anything. Why shouldn't he leave the fu-"

"Casey!" Sarah interrupted. "Shouting will not help us find him."

"But it will help me. Shouting can be pretty therapeutic when you're dealing with an absolute _moron_ with a _computer_ in his _brain_ but with _no common sense_." Casey clenched his teeth. "Shouldn't the Intersect have made him smart, Walker?"

Sarah didn't respond. She was too busy trying to think of any reason why Chuck had left. He knew that it was safer inside, and she had made sure to specifically tell him not to move, but she should have known that he wouldn't listen. He never had before, so why should he start now? Besides, she and Casey had always been able to get to him before anything really bad could happen to him. He probably expected nothing different.

 _Damn it, Chuck._ Sarah pushed past Casey and sat in the chair in front of the computer screen. "What are you doing, Walker?" Casey said angrily.

"I'm trying to see if we can get a signal from the trackers in his watch or phone," Sarah explained. She was struggling to keep all fear out of her voice, but it still trembled with pent up emotion. As she typed quickly, Casey leaned over and picked something up on the floor of the van.

"Well, his phone won't help any," he said flatly.

"Why not?" Sarah didn't bother to glance over.

"Because it's right here."

"What?" Sarah spun her chair to see Casey glaring at Chuck's phone in his hand. It showed a missed call from Morgan (he was probably stuck in the Cage again or something). "Damn it. He must have been gone for a while," Sarah said.

"He stopped talking few minutes in," Casey agreed. "We should have checked on him. Damn it."

"How could we have known that he was in trouble?" Sarah asked, trying to reassure herself as much as her partner. "There were plenty of good reasons for his silence other than him leaving."

"But what reason is more likely than him just disobeying direct orders from both a CIA agent and an NSA agent?" Casey pointed out.

Sarah paused, then agreed with him and kept on typing. They were silent for another tense minute as Sarah tried to pick up a signal from Chuck's watch and Casey tried not to punch something.

"Got it!" Sarah suddenly cried out.

"Where?" Casey straightened.

Sarah squinted at the screen. "Um, it's right outside the car." Casey grunted in a confused way and slung open the door. He jumped out, Sarah right behind him. They sprinted to the sidewalk beside the car and immediately saw his watch on the ground, flattened by someone's large boot. Several wires were pointing to the sky, sparking.

Casey's grip tightened on his gun. "Well, there goes any chance of finding him." He kicked the watch into the grass angrily.

Sarah refused to accept this. "No, it's not. Maybe we can find security camera footage or something that will show us who took him."

"I guess." Casey didn't sound sure. "I doubt whoever did this would be stupid enough to get it on camera, but we can try. Why the hell did Bartowski get out of the damn car?" He slammed his hand on the hood of the car. Sarah wanted to do the same, but someone had to keep a level head. If Casey wasn't going to, Sarah had to. _I hate being the calm one,_ she thought sourly.

"I'm sure he had some good reason," Sarah said. She stuck her gun back into her waistband. "But we need to find him. Right now."

"I know," Casey growled. "I'll drive." He opened the driver's side door and slammed it behind him as he sat down. Sarah leaped into the back of the van and almost fell over as he gunned the engine and pulled out onto the street. She tried to tell herself that Chuck would be fine, but, despite her best efforts to put it out of her head, Sarah couldn't help but think that they might be too late.

Thirty minutes later, Sarah and Casey were in front of a very angry General. Casey stood like he normally did, with his hands behind his back. Sarah was sitting in the chair in the back, trying not to panic. She was normally good at compartmentalizing her feelings and her work, but Chuck had messed all of that up. Now someone she had feelings for someone who was part of her work, and she wasn't sure if she liked that.

Now that he was captured, she definitely didn't like it.

"So you are telling me," General Beckman was saying. "That you lost the asset on a simple reconnaissance mission. He was in the van, away from the action, where there were supposed to be no enemy spies or mafia members, and you LOST HIM?"

"If I may say so," Casey said. "It's not our fault. The asset has never been good at staying in the car and we specifically-"

"That doesn't matter now!" General Beckman interrupted. "They have the Intersect, and we need to get it back before they are able to get any information out of it."

Sarah got up and started pacing. "Can we stop talking about Chuck like he's an inanimate object?" she said angrily. "He is a human being with thoughts and feelings, and right now he's probably scared out of his mind. Who knows what they'll do to him?"

"Or what they've already done to him," Casey added helpfully.

Sarah glared at him and turned back to General Beckman. "We _are_ planning on getting him back, aren't we?"

General Beckman pursed her lips. "We have no other choice in the matter. If they learn that he is the Intersect, who knows how much sensitive information they will get out of him. I am right in assuming that his pain tolerance level is… less than impressive?"

"Right. Just one problem," said Casey. "We can't track him."

"What?" General Beckman asked, her voice dangerously calm. "Why not?"

"They destroyed his watch and his phone. Without those, we have no way of knowing where he is." Casey glanced away from the general's withering stare. "They took out any security cameras in the area, so there's no way of finding out where he is now."

The General cursed under her breath. "There has to be something you can do. Every camera was destroyed?" Casey grunted in the affirmative. "There were no witnesses?"

"Not that we can find. The street was suspiciously empty," Casey said. "Like I said, there's no way of finding him."

Sarah suddenly looked up. "Well, that's not entirely true."

Casey narrowed his eyes at her. "Walker, what are you talking about?" he asked.

Sarah met his look head on. "I might have put tracking devices in his shoes."

General Beckman nodded. "That makes sense, since he keeps conveniently losing his watch when you need to find him."

Casey grunted in reluctant appreciation. "When did this happen? Last time I checked, his Chuck Taylors were completely normal." He then mumbled something probably offensive under his breath about Chuck owning chucks.

Sarah crossed her arms defensively. "Well, I decided that we needed a better way of finding him, since the last incident almost ended in disaster and-"

"And now this mission _is_ ending in disaster," General Beckman finished for her. "Good thinking, Agent Walker."

"So, what do we do now?" Sarah opened her mouth to reply, but she was interrupted by a loud ringing. She frowned and pulled out her phone. "Oh no."

"Who is it?" Casey asked. "Pozdnyakov?"

She shook her head. "Worse. Ellie."

"Who?" General Beckman asked.  
"Chuck's sister," Sarah answered. "I need to take this."

"Sure, take your time," Casey called after her as she moved away. "Not like there aren't important things we need to discuss right now or anything."

Sarah ignored him and walked into the next room. She took a deep breath to steady herself, then answered the call and asked, "Hello?"

"Sarah!" Ellie's voice was full of relief. "Hey, I'm so glad I got to you."

"Yeah, hi." Sarah forced herself to sound happy. "What can I do for you? Do you need something?"

Ellie paused. "Kind of. Do you know where Chuck is? I keep calling him, but he's not picking up."

"Oh." Sarah searched frantically for some plausible reason for his silence. She came up empty. "I- um, no, I haven't seen him all day. Why are you looking for him?"

"Hasn't he told you?" Ellie sounded surprised. "We're all having dinner tonight. And by 'all', I mean you, me, Chuck, and Devon. Chuck sounded really excited about it this morning. You really haven't seen him at all? That's strange. He wanted to tell you as soon as he heard."

Sarah shut her eyes. "No, I haven't. He was probably meaning to say something and just forgot."

"Yeah, maybe." Ellie didn't sound convinced.

"Anyway, I'll be there," Sarah said. "But I have to go. I'll see you tonight?"

"Yeah! That sounds great." They said their goodbyes and Sarah hung up. Immediately, a wave of crushing guilt hit her. Earlier that day, Chuck had come into the Orange Orange and enthusiastically tried to tell her something, but she had cut him off and pulled him downstairs for a mission debriefing. He had probably been trying to tell her about his plans for the night. And now he might never be able to go.

 _Stop that,_ her rational side told her commandingly. _Chuck will be fine, just like he always is. He will be there for dinner, and you will be there with him, and you all will have a GREAT time._ Her emotional side tried to argue, but she forced herself to ignore it and composed herself before walking back into the main room.

"About time," Casey grumbled. "You ready?" He had two full black duffle bags on the table and was checking the magazine on a pistol. The General had logged off.

"Yeah," Sarah said. "Let's go kill those bastards."

 **I know, this one is a bit shorter, but the next one will be longer, I promise. Did Sarah's and Casey's reactions seem pretty in character? You have no idea how many times I rewrote that part, because I just couldn't seem to get the right balance of anger and worry.**

 **I don't plan on making this story overall very long, however, because I have a bad habit of just writing whatever's in my head without an end goal in mind. That's what happened with this story. I wrote the first chapter and uploaded, then I thought,** _ **Where the heck am I going with this**_ **? I do have a hazy plan, but you don't need to know about that. Just know that I plan on updating once or twice a week, maybe every Monday and Friday.**

 **I have said too much. Thank you for reading, and remember…**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Chuck, the man or the show.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hi! Welcome back, you wonderful people. Thank you for staying with me so far. Okay, so this section will probably have the most direct mention of torture in the entire story. Again, I'll try not to make it too explicit, but you may now consider yourself warned. You're welcome.**

 **Also, you should probably know that this story will mostly be from the viewpoint of Sarah. I know the first one was Chuck, but that one had to be. There will probably be at least one more Chuck-view chapter, but for now, it's all Sarah.**

 **Lead on, Agents Walker and Casey!**

 **(Disclaimer: I once got a cat for Christmas, but other than that, I own nothing.)**

After an unfortunate, completely deliberate "accident" involving a computer and Casey's knife, he and Sarah managed to find where Chuck was being held. He was in an old building about twenty minutes outside of Burbank. They immediately got in the car and took off, but the traffic turned a twenty-minute drive into a forty-minute one, and each added minute made Sarah jumpy. Casey was completely calm, like he normally was, but Sarah knew her partner well enough to tell when something was bothering him. He was worried about Chuck, but he tried not to show it.

They had also called General Beckman as soon as they learned of the Intersect's location, and she had promised to send in backup, but she hadn't been able to promise it soon. The nearest reinforcements were just under an hour away from Burbank. They would be on their way immediately, but could only get there so soon.

They had briefly discussed calling the police, but the local force wasn't ready to deal with several trained assassins and the Russian crime family. That was up to the CIA and NSA. To some extent, it was up to the FBI as well, but Casey was always sure to remind everyone of how pathetic the FBI was compared to the NSA. To paraphrase without any curse words, not well.

Casey pulled up to the curb and cut off the engine. Sarah immediately got out and shut the door quietly behind her. Casey did the same, and they pulled out their pistols. Casey took the lead, slowly making their way up to the building. They crouched in the shadows of some trees and got a better look at it. Sarah cursed under her breath.

It wasn't very impressive, only two stories high, with entrances or exits on either floor. It was made of solid brick, and was squat and long. Two men stood relaxed in the doorway of the front door. Two other men were on the roof above them, one at each end of the building. Another man guarded the back door. All of them wore dark clothing, despite the California heat, and loosely held large guns. From this distance, Sarah couldn't make out the exact model of any of them.

Casey gave her a look, and she nodded toward the guards. "There are five of them. I don't think we should-"

Casey scoffed. "We can take out five men, easy."

"Can we do it without alarming the people inside? The ones with Chuck and pointy objects?"

A pause. "Now, that's an entirely different question." Casey studied the situation. "We can't wait for reinforcements, can we?"

"No! We have to get Chuck out of there now!"

"They'll be here soon. The General said under an hour, and it's been at least forty-five minutes…" Sarah sent him a glare. "Fine. Just don't blame me if we get captured and killed." He gestured to the roof. "We need to take them out first, since they'll see anything we try to do."

"But we can't get up there without a guard at the bottom seeing us," Sarah pointed out.

Casey didn't miss a beat. "I guess you'll have to distract that guard at the back while I climb up the wall."

"What? That won't help. The guard up top will still see me and- oh. I'll have to distract both of them, won't I?"

"I'm sure you can do it, Walker," Casey said in his partly sarcastic voice. "Don't get me killed, alright?"

Sarah ignored him and tucked her pistol in the back of her belt. "Let's get going," she said. Casey moved around the far side of the building, taking the long, long way around. Sarah waited at the back, and when he motioned at her, she took a deep breath. _I can't mess this up._

She ran her hands through her hair and mussed it slightly. She started panting a little and stood. She walked out of the shadows slowly, limping slightly. She looked up at the building, shielding her eyes from the sun, and pretended to see it for the first time. She waved, a little desperately, and began to jog, still with her limp.

The guard at the back door jumped a little when he saw her. He looked around, as if searching for someone else, then he came halfway down the stairs. Sarah was still wearing her orange tank top, white pants, and light shoes not meant for heavy use, which helped her look the part. Only spacey blondes would be walking around in a deserted part of California in this outfit with no water or company. Right?

The poor guard came down the rest of the stairs and lowered his gun. "Uh, ma'am?" he called. "Are you okay?" Before she responded, Sarah noticed the guard on the roof come to the edge and watch her approach. _Perfect_.

"Oh, thank God!" she said. "I don't know where I am!" She sped up a little and stopped a few feet in front of the confused guard. He looked pretty young, probably lower to mid-twenties. He looked a little uncomfortable with his gun, like he had only had it for a few minutes. He had a nice face. _Kind of like Chuck._

Sarah forced those kinds of thoughts out of her head. "Hi!" she said, overly enthusiastic and yet tired at the same time. "I've been lost for, like, _hours._ " She stressed the last word and started twirling her hair, going into her valley girl attitude. "Do you think you could, like, help me or something?"

"Uh…" the guard was speechless for a few seconds. He glanced behind him as if asking for help, but the guard up top just shrugged at him. "I guess."

"Oh, thank you," Sarah gushed. She glanced upwards as well, where Casey was busy strangling the guard on the roof. "I have, like, no idea where I am." She went into an overly long explanation of how she was out with Rebecca last night and she somehow ended up in the middle of the road, Rebecca-less, and with no idea what happened. True, it was a horrible cover story, but the guard seemed to buy it. Sarah was in a hurry and was rather scared, as much as she denied it.

And, unfortunately for the young guard, she was not in a good mood. As soon as she saw Casey give her the "all-clear" signal, she dropped her act, took a step forward and swung her elbow into his face. There was an audible crack, and he fell backwards. He didn't move.

Casey quickly climbed back down the wall and drop the last few feet. He jogged up to her and looked at the unconscious man at their feet. "Wow. You didn't take it easy on him, did you?"

"There was no reason to," Sarah said defensively. "Anyway, he's out of the way. That's what we needed."

Casey kept eye contact with her for another second, then shrugged and said, "Okay." He stealthily ran up to the door, Sarah right behind him. He listened carefully for the sounds of someone near the door on the inside. When he heard nothing he slowly twisted the handle and cracked the door open. He watched for another second, then pushed the door open another couple feet and slipped in. Sarah came in right behind him.

She glanced at her watch. "Reinforcements should get here soon." Casey looked at her hopefully. "No, they won't be here in time for us to wait," she said, annoyed. Casey shook his head and said something under his breath, but Sarah chose to ignore him.

They crouched behind a stack of wooden boxes. Casey peeked out behind it and cursed. "There's no way we're going to be able to find Bartowski in there," he said.

"Why not?" Sarah took a look around their cover. "Oh," was her only response. In front of them was a huge maze of boxes and machinery, each a good ten feet tall or higher. Chuck could be hidden in any little dead-end or turn, not to mention any little hidden rooms. The warehouse was huge; they wouldn't have time to run through the entire thing.

"Were they _trying_ to make a maze out of boxes?" Casey muttered. "That would take a really long time to set up if it's just for a temporary hideout."

"Well, maybe it's permanent," Sarah pointed out. "Or maybe it was like this when they found it."

"Whatever, it doesn't matter. The important thing is that the Intersect is in here somewhere."

Sarah sat back. "What do we do? We need to find him soon, or… well, I don't want to think about that."

Casey growled, "I know, Walker. Let me think. If we could get to high ground, maybe one of us could guide the other through this?"

Sarah glanced up. "There isn't a catwalk or anything." She froze. "Damn it. Casey, there's a second floor too."

"Damn it," Casey echoed. "One of us has to check up there." They shared a look. "Fine. I guess I'll go," Casey said reluctantly. "Tell me if you see anything."

"Why wouldn't I?" Sarah snapped. Casey looked like he wanted to snap right back, but he seemed to understand that Sarah was extremely stressed out and was trying to keep herself under control. He tightened his grip on his gun and ran to the stairs at the other side of the room, his back bent, head low.

Sarah took a deep breath and ran to the cover of another stack of boxes. She poked her head around, ready to jump back if she saw anyone, but there was no one there. She moved forward and repeated her actions, but, still, there was no one. _Strange,_ she thought. _There should be guards somewhere._ She didn't hear any footsteps or bored conversation.

 _What if Chuck isn't actually here and this is a trap?_ she suddenly thought, panicked. But she shook her head and ignored that thought. Their tracking devices hadn't let them down yet, and she knew that she had activated them correctly when she hid them. She had to have faith, which was uncomfortable ground for Sarah Walker.

She made her way to another corner and checked for any passing men. Nothing. She lifted her watch to her mouth and whispered, "Casey, have you found anything yet?"

Casey took a moment to reply. "There's some nerd meeting of Russian analysts up here and a few guards, but so far, nothing." Sarah cursed again. "There's another room down the hall, and I hear voices. There might be more men in there. Really, Walker," Casey added in mock surprise. "I didn't know you had such a dirty mouth."

"Shut up, Casey. I haven't seen anyone. Do you think we're at the wrong location?" As she looked down the barrel of her pistol, she noticed her hand shaking slightly. She tightened her grip and gritted her teeth, trying to steady her hand. Now was not the time to let her nerves affect her shot.

"We had better not be. I swear, if he is wearing the wrong pair of shoes and we're following some random worker, I will personally cut off his-"

"Wait!" Sarah cut him off with a useless hand motion. "Listen. Do you hear that?" They waited for a few moments. Casey tried to say something again, probably sarcastic, but Sarah hushed him. After a few tense seconds, Sarah heard faint laughing. It was a low, deep laugh that definitely did not belong to Chuck, but it was something.

"Casey! I hear someone."

"Is it Bartowski?"

"No, but-"

"Then ignore him, Walker."

"But what if Chuck is with him?"

A pause. "Fine. Be careful."

Sarah tried to fake some enthusiasm. "When am I not?"

"When Bartowski is in danger."

"Shut up. I'll be careful, Casey." Sarah listened carefully for the laugh again, but this time it was only the low rumble of someone talking behind a wall. It was extremely faint. She followed the sound through some twists and turns until she found an exit from the maze of machinery. She put her back to the wall and waited for whoever had been talking to start again. After a few seconds, she thought she heard something, but she couldn't be sure. She took a step to her left, still waiting for the man to speak again, when she heard something else loud and clear. A high-pitched scream coming from the same direction. On a normal mission, she might have assumed that this was the scream of a middle-aged woman, or perhaps a teenager.

But this was not a normal mission, and Sarah recognized that impossibly endearing girly scream. _Chuck_.

"Casey!" she said urgently.

"What!" he replied irritably. "I still haven't found him, if that's what you're-"

"He's down here." Sarah tried to keep the panic out of her voice. "Chuck is down here. I heard him scream."

"You're sure it was him?" Casey asked, although Sarah could hear the rustling of his clothes as he sprinted back to the stairs.

"Yes, I'm sure it was him," Sarah snarled. "How could anyone mistake Chuck's scream for someone else?"

"Good point. It is abnormally high-pitched. I'll be right there. Don't do anything stupid until I get there. You hear me, Walker?"

"I hear you. Hurry up!" Sarah kept walking forward, however. She couldn't just stand still. She could at least find exactly where he was before Casey got there and save them both some time.

"Damn it," Casey said in Sarah's ear. "Sarah, how do I get to you?"

 _Right, the maze._ Sarah pursed her lips, trying to remember exactly what turns she had taken. "Take a right, right, left, straight, left, right, left, then straight until the wall."

"Impressive, Walker. I'm on my way." His tone of voice was almost surprised, but Sarah didn't feel like now was the time to be making snarky comebacks.

"Casey, you need to hurry. I'm almost-" Sarah was cut off by another scream, most definitely Chuck's and most definitely closer. "Hurry up!" She took off at a quiet run toward the sound. Chuck sounded like he was in serious pain. _Oh, God, I hope they didn't bring out any needles._

"Okay, I heard that one," Casey said. Sarah heard thumping behind her. She cast a glance over her back and saw Casey already catching up to her. She motioned him to hurry up and kept running.

She heard the laugh again, now much closer and sounding much more sinister. She could almost make out his words, but his voice was still too muffled. As she neared it, she put her back against the wall once more and stepped to a metal door.

Casey slid up next to her. "Is he in there?" he asked, nodding his head at the door.

"I think so." As Sarah said it, there was another shout, obviously Chuck trying to postpone something, because he was rambling. His words were slurred.

"Oh, God, he's rambling again," Casey muttered. Sarah shot him a glare and gently tried the door handle. It wouldn't budge.

"It's locked," she said. She had to stop her hand from shaking as she withdrew it from the door. She couldn't imagine what it would be like without Chuck there at her every turn, distracting her on missions, talking too much to try to fill in an awkward situation that he created, always coming in to get frozen yogurt instead of actually doing his job. Granted, several of those occasions were because of an impending mission briefing, but there were times when he just wanted to come to get frozen yogurt and talk to her. She enjoyed those moments.

Sarah knew that he tried so hard not to be overprotective, and she appreciated that, but she also sometimes welcomed how concerned he was about her. No one had ever been like that, not even her father, who was always too busy planning the next con. Casey was in his own way, but he showed it in grunts and annoyed, sarcastic one-liners. Chuck always tried to talk about his or her feelings, which was something no agent would try to bring up. But, then again, Chuck was no agent, no matter how many times General Beckman tried to tell them differently.

Sarah had grown used to his presence. It comforted her when she angry or sad, and calmed her when she was stressed, which happened more and more lately. That may have had something to do with the fact that Chuck would never just stay in the car like he was told. But no matter what he did, he always had good intentions. He would never deliberately hurt someone. Usually, it was on accident while misinformed.

Sarah enjoyed that about him, too. He preferred being read like an open book instead of covering up everything with lies and deceit, like she and most other agents did. She knew how hard it was for Chuck to lie to his family about all of this, but he knew how important it was. His honesty and tendency to see the best in people seemed to always get him in sticky situations, but Sarah and Casey had always been able to get him out of trouble before any real damage was done.

Now, they might be too late, and Sarah had to blink back tears and hope that Casey didn't notice.

Unfortunately, he did, but he just gave her a look and stepped in front of the door. "Casey!" Sarah hissed. "We can't just barge in there. They might kill him!"

"Face it, Walker," Casey growled. "He might already be dead. We can't just wait out here and hope for the best." He glared at her, but she refused to back down. "We don't have time for this, Walker!" Casey sighed. "The door is too thick anyway. Fine, move." He pushed her to the side and knelt in front of the lock, pulling out a lock pick. They both knew that Sarah was better at picking locks, but she didn't argue. It would waste valuable time.

A man behind the door began speaking again. He also had a heavy Russian accent, like the man with the deep voice, but his was a bit higher pitched. Now that she was so close, Sarah could understand his muffled words. "You do realize that I have no trouble doing this all night. Being brave will gain you nothing," he said. "We know that the Intersect has been uploaded to someone's brain. And we know that it didn't go into Bryce Larkin's head." Sarah exchanged looks with Casey.

There was some rustling, and the man kept talking. "If this is a matter of loyalty, then you are as naive as I first thought you were. Who is there to be loyal to? Agent Casey will shoot you as soon as his beloved General Beckman gives him the word. He does not care if you live or die." Casey tried to filter out his words. "The pretty little CIA agent, maybe? She will turn her back on you in an instant. Don't think for an instant that she really cares about you. You're an asset, Chuck, and that's all she will ever see you as. A pathetic geek." Sarah winced.

"Nerd," Chuck volunteered weakly. "I'm a nerd, not a geek." Sarah's heart broke at the pain in his voice.

"Oh, I'm sorry. 'Nerd.' Is that supposed to make a difference?" the man asked contemptuously. "She's more interested in real men, like- what's his name, Iosif?"

The other man, Iosif, answered, "Cole Barker."

"Ah, right. Agent Barker. Remind me again how many times he saved her life in the few days that you knew him?" There was a pause. Sarah had stiffened at the mention of Cole's name. _How does he know about all of that?_ Casey shot her a look over his shoulder, and she tried to look braver than she felt.

"How do you know about Cole?" Chuck asked quietly.

The man ignored Chuck's question. "While he was saving her from getting shot, you sprained your ankle coming in through a window and dropped your gun." His voice dripped with sarcasm and disdain. "All this to further prove my point. You have nothing to be loyal to, you don't have much more time to live. You won't survive this encounter one way or another. Why not take the easy road and just tell us where the Intersect is?" Sarah could hear the annoyance building in his voice. She also thought she heard the scuffling of footsteps, like someone was dragging their feet, but she couldn't be sure.

"Casey!" Sarah whispered. "Hurry up!"

"I'm trying, Walker! I've never seen this kind of lock before. Its really complicated."

"Well, you have to figure out some way to get through it right now." Sarah felt absolutely no guilt for snapping at Casey. He was moving so goddamned slow.

"Iosif," said the man. "I tire of this. Give Chuck a little more.. inspiration." Iosif chuckled, and Sarah heard the scraping of knives.  
"No!" she shouted. Casey hushed her, but, even if they had heard her, it didn't stop Iosif. Chuck screamed again, and this time, Sarah wasn't able to keep tears out of her eyes. "Casey! Hurry up!" Casey didn't say anything. He just grunted and shifted a little. Sarah checked her watch. It had been almost an hour since they had left the castle. Reinforcements should arrive at any moment. At least, Sarah hoped that they would. With a lot of firepower. Sarah would enjoy blowing away the maniacs in the room with Chuck.

Of course, she didn't need firepower to do that, but it was more fun that way.

"Chuck," the man said. "I really don't enjoy doing this. Like I told you earlier, it is lucky for me that we have Iosif here. Well, I suppose it is unlucky for you, yes? Iosif is very good at his job."

There was an audible click from the door lock, and Sarah flinched at the loud noise. "Got it," Casey muttered. He stuffed his pick back into his pocket and grabbed his pistol. He stood and nodded to Sarah. "Ready, Walker?" She grimly raised her pistol in reply and aimed it at the door.

Casey raised his gun and kicked open the door. He charged in and shouted, "NSA! Drop your weapons!" Sarah ran in after him. She would have announced her presence as CIA, but there was no point in it, and she was too busy searching the room for Chuck.

The room they ran into was larger than it had appeared. It was about three times the size of a normal prison cell, and was furnished with one chair in the center of the room and a table next to it. The artificial light was weak and didn't shed light on the corners of the room. Sarah's breath hitched when she saw the weapons on the table and the blood on the floor.

"Weapons on the floor!" Casey repeated. There was a large man standing next to the table. He had massive muscles and at least three or four inches on Casey. Despite his obvious physical advantages, the man, who Sarah assumed was Iosif, dropped the knife he was holding and raised his hands.

"On the ground!" Casey barked, but Iosif, instead of cooperating like Sarah and Casey had hoped he would, just smiled grimly. "I said, on the ground!" Casey repeated. Iosif didn't move.

Sarah took a step forward, keeping her gun trained on the man's forehead. "Casey," she said. "Do you see Chuck?" Casey quickly scanned the room, then returned his attention to Iosif. "No," he said. "Damn it."

"Well, Casey," a voice came from the back of the room. "I see the years have not been kind to your eyesight."

Sarah's gun jerked in that direction. "Come out and put your hands up!" she shouted.

"No need to be so rude," the voice said smugly. Slowly, a large silhouette appeared from the shadows in the back of the room. As it approached, Sarah could see that it wasn't the silhouette of one person. It was too large and misshapen. It slowly advanced into the light.

Casey cursed. Sarah restrained herself from doing the same. A man came fully out of the shadows, holding a knife to Chuck's neck. Both agents recognized the man as Dmitri Andreyev. General Beckman had warned them about him a week or two earlier. He was a dangerous and active criminal, but he hadn't been caught yet.

Sarah was less concerned about this than she was about Chuck. His hair was slicked back to his forehead with sweat and his eyes were glassy and unfocused. His hands were tied behind his back, and his knees were bent awkwardly like he was supporting himself on the shorter man behind him. Sarah only partly noticed all of this. Her eyes were mostly drawn to his chest and face. He was wearing a white tank top undershirt that seemed a little too tight on him.

Normally, Sarah wouldn't have minded this, but this made the knife wounds more evident through the tight, thin cloth. They covered his torso in an almost methodical pattern down his chest and onto his stomach and sides. The shirt was saturated in blood, more red than it's original white. There was a long gash from just above his cheekbone to below his jaw line. More blood was running down his face from a wound at his hairline and soaking into the collar of his shirt. A large bruise covered his other cheek.

He had already lost a lot of blood. Sarah had seen him in previous torture situations, and he had never been good under that kind of pressure. She had no idea what had suddenly changed that, and she wasn't sure if she was proud of him for being so brave or angry at him for almost getting himself killed.

 _Almost? He isn't out of this yet._

Dmitri dragged Chuck forward another few steps until he was only a foot or two behind Iosif. He looked completely calm, despite the two guns pointed at his face. "Hello, Agent Casey, Agent Walker." He had such a look of superiority on his face that Sarah wanted to punch something, anything, A wall would do fine. His face would be much better.

"Andreyev," Casey growled. "Let Bartowski go. Right now."

Dmitri paused, as if he was considering the idea. "You know, that is a very tempting offer, but I think I'll keep him. I have grown rather fond of him. He is quite funny when you get to know him. He never stops talking. Granted, he never talks about the right subject, but I can change that. With enough time." He gently moved the knife over Chuck's throat. Chuck flinched slightly. He made eye contact with Sarah. His warm brown eyes were filled with absolute terror and pain.

"Andreyev," Casey said slowly. "There are CIA reinforcements on their way right now. They will be here any minute. With or without your cooperation, we will capture you. Or kill you, I have no preference."

"Oh, very scary," Dmitri said. "I have chills up my spine. You see, the problem is that I cannot do that." He pressed the knife slightly harder against Chuck's neck and drew a small bead of blood. Chuck whimpered slightly.

"Chuck," Sarah said, her voice cracking nervously. She cursed inwardly and said a bit louder, "Stay still."

Dmitri wetted his lips. "Poor little agent. Did you think I didn't notice your little stunt outside with the guard? We aren't complete fools." He shifted his weight onto his other foot, making Chuck bend awkwardly with him. "I saw you coming from a- what is it you Americans say? "I saw you coming from a mile away", although, of course, it was more like a few dozen feet. That is irrelevant.

"That is why I came in here. I do not enjoy the messier side of things, like Iosif does. Normally, I try to away from him while he does his work." Dmitri pressed the knife a little harder against Chuck's neck. "If I were to leave him here, alone with three agents, he would never make it out alive."

"He still won't," Casey growled.

Sarah swung her aim back to Iosif when he chuckled. "What?" she asked irritably.

"This puny little man could never defeat me," he laughed, gesturing to Casey. "And there are no reinforcements. You came alone. You are lying to try to buy time." He pulled out another knife from his back pocket.

Casey turned his gun to Iosif as well and said, "Put that knife down right now, or we'll have no choice but to shoot you."

Iosif ignored him and flipped the knife idly in his hands. Dmitri cocked his head. "Is that true, Agent Casey? Are you lying about your reinforcements?"

"No, we're not," Sarah put in. "They are coming-"

"I do not believe you," Iosif said simply. He glanced at Dmitri, who nodded slightly, then he flipped the knife one more time and threw it at Casey's chest with deadly accuracy. Casey shouted and jumped to the side. The knife buried itself in the wall behind him. He fell back and tried to raise his pistol, but Iosif knocked it from his hands. Casey yanked the knife out of the wall and raised it to defend himself while scrambling to his feet.

Sarah was about to run over to help him, but he noticed her and barked, "Walker! Get Bartowski!" Sarah's head whipped around and she saw Dmitri drag Chuck out a back door they hadn't noticed before. She had to hope that Casey could handle Iosif without her help. She felt a slight twinge of guilt at leaving him, but she turned and sprinted toward the closing door.

 **Okay, I planned on writing all of this in one chapter, but this is already way longer than I expected it to be, so I'll cut it off here. (I did promise a longer chapter, though, and I kept my promise. This is still over three thousand words longer...) And that wasn't too bad, was it? All the torture and knives and-**

 **Oh. It was? But there weren't any needles. Dang it. Well, sorry to you tender souls. That was probably the worst that I'll write. I could make it much more worthy of its T rating, but I have decided not to. Again, thank you for sticking around and reading what I've put out so far. Reviews are extremely appreciated. If you want to see a happy little Handsome Barbarian dance, then continue doing so. Well, you won't see it, but I will. Trust me when I say that it exists. Sorry for the cliffhanger...**

 **Also, if you think that Sarah's reaction was a little off because she waited for so long to mention her trackers in Chuck's shoes (Rob M, I'm talking to you here, if you hadn't realized), sorry about that. I meant to write it like she had forgotten until that particular moment, mostly for two reasons: 1, that she was quietly too panicked to think straight (well, for her standards, she was. Compared to me and probably most of us in that situation, she was completely level-headed), and 2, she had only just put them in his shoes earlier that week, so she hadn't gotten used to checking them regularly. I don't think that she had had enough time to make checking them a thing they did all the time, and she had installed them recently enough that she hadn't even told Casey about it, so I thought it made sense. I'm sorry if that wasn't completely clear, but I hope this helps.**

 **Until next time.**


	4. Chapter 4

**And… we're back. Part 2 of Part 3, otherwise known as Part 4. I wrote this at the same time as the previous chapter, but, together, they're just too long, so they have been split up. This one may not be as long as the previous one. I just had to find a convenient place to stop with enough cliff-hangerishness for you to want to continue reading. Did it work? Hopefully.**

 **Anyway, enough of this boring stuff. Back to the action!**

 **(Disclaimer: I don't own Chuck. I'm so, so alone.)**

Sarah slammed through the door and entered another hallway. Dmitri was out of sight, but she could hear his heavy footsteps coming from her right. She ran to the end of the corridor and pushed through another door, entering the main room again.

She heard Chuck's strangled cry of pain echo through the warehouse and called out, "Let him go, Andreyev! He has nothing to do with this!"

Dmitri laughed. "He has nothing to do with this? Please, do not lie to me, Agent Walker. You would not be here if he was not important." Sarah gritted her teeth. The irony was not lost on her. Chuck was in danger because she and Casey were always there to protect him from things like this happening. It only made her more angry.

"You see," Dmitri continued. "We need some information. Charles here can give us this information, I am sure of it. If he would only tell me who the Intersect is, then this whole nightmare could be over, and you two can return to your 'normal' lives." Chuck grunted in pain. Dmitri continued talking. "Charles, please, I don't want to do this. I leave these things to Iosif for a reason." Sarah tried to filter out the little noises of pain Chuck was making and crept forward stealthily. Dmitri and Chuck were in the maze of boxes and machines. Unless Dmitri knew exactly where he was going, Sarah had a chance to find them before they got out.

"You CIA fools," Dmitri continued contemptuously. "Always too proud for your own good. Did you think that we didn't know about your influence here? You can't hide for two years in such a small city as Burbank-" he spat the word like even saying it left a bad taste in his mouth,"-without giving away something. As soon as our men lost the trail of that MI6 agent, Barker, we knew something was wrong. We stayed back, and it turned out that he had the help of the American government. The CIA and the NSA working together. With the MI6 as well! I never thought I would live to see the day." Dmitri laughed. "After that, your presence was obvious. It was a miracle we hadn't noticed you before."

Sarah bit her tongue and advanced into the maze. She tried to remember the directions she had given Casey earlier to get through the maze, when he had tried to catch up to her, but her brain was in a panic, and she was having trouble recalling any specifics. Dmitri's carefully calculated words didn't help either. Sarah tried to ignore them, but she couldn't help being worried. _If he knows we're here, who else does too?_ She didn't have time to think too much about this. She would just have to wait until she could get into contact with the General again. There were more important things at stake right now. She sidled up to a corner and swung around it, her gun pointed at the far end, but no one was there.

"Oh, no," Dmitri chided softly. "There is no fainting to get out of this one, Chuck." There was a thump and Chuck cried out again. Dmitri hushed him. "We wouldn't want your little friend to find you prematurely. I might decide that you aren't worth the trouble."

A muffled shot rang out and echoed in the large room. A door opened violently. "Andreyev!" Sarah heard Casey roar. She could tell his words were a bit slurred, but he seemed fine. "Come out, you coward! Bartowski is useless, he has nothing to do with this!"

"Oh! Listen to that, Charles! It seems like your other little friend has survived as well. But-" He seemed to realize what that indicated. "Iosif?"

"He's dead, Andreyev," Casey said flatly. Sarah wanted to yell at him to shut up, to stop trying to rile up the very dangerous man with a knife at Chuck's throat, but she didn't need Dmitri knowing where she was.

"He is- very well. I suppose, in his line of work, he wouldn't be able to live very long." Despite his words, Sarah heard the anger in his voice. "I will not make that mistake, however. Now, if you don't mind, I think it's time to leave."

"No! You get back here, you god damned son of a b-" The rest of Casey's insult was interrupted by a huge crash. _Did he just- is he running through the walls?_ Sarah glanced to where the crashes were coming from in time to see Casey flying through a wall of boxes and slamming into her. A breath of air rushed out of her lungs and they hit the floor hard. Casey cursed at her. "What are you doing here, Walker? Why aren't you following Andreyev?" She clenched her jaw at Andreyev's condescending laughter.

"I was!" Sarah shoved him off of her and got to her feet, Casey close behind her. "We need to catch up to them without just crashing through the walls of the maze," Sarah said pointedly. "It's too loud. Come on." She gestured for him to follow her, and they took off in the direction they had last heard Chuck.

A loud creaking noise filled the air. Sarah felt Casey jump slightly behind her, but she refrained from commenting. "What was that?" she whispered.

"It sounded like a garage door or something," Casey said. "We _are_ in a warehouse."

"But who would be-" Sarah suddenly realized something. "Reinforcements! They should be here by now, right?" Casey nodded slowly, realizing what she was saying, and said, "Right."

"CIA!" they heard a voice shout from the front of the building. "Drop your weapons!"

"What?" Dmitri said in confusion and surprise. He was much closer now than he had been before Casey busted through the wall of boxes, but his voice echoed so much that it was difficult to tell where it came from. "You actually brought- damn it!" Dmitri cursed in Russian. "Chuck, I'm afraid you will have to come with me. I was planning on letting you go, or possibly shooting you, but now, I cannot do that." He grunted, like he was trying to pick Chuck up or drag him along the ground. Chuck had a good few inches on him, however, so that couldn't be easy for him. "Come on, we have to go. Pick up your goddamn feet!" Dmitri was beginning to sound more exasperated. He lowered his voice further and hissed, "If you will not walk, you force me to shoot you in the head. I do not think-" he grunted in the middle of his sentence. "-that you want me to do that?" Almost immediately, the rustling sounds stopped, and were replaced with loud footsteps.

Casey's head whipped toward the sound of the footsteps. They echoed less and were easier to locate. "Got him," he muttered.

"Stop that!" Dmitri hissed loudly. There was another stifled grunt, and the footsteps quieted.

"Casey," Sarah whispered. "He's really close. He can't be more than a few feet away."

"Yeah, I realized," Casey replied sarcastically. "Can I go through the wall now?"

"No! He still has Chuck."

"Fine," he said, almost sulkily, like a kid being told he couldn't shoot Daddy's gun. The CIA agents had moved farther into the warehouse and called for Dmitri to give himself up again, but there was no response, not even to taunt them.

Sarah crept to the next turn and checked the next corridor, but she still couldn't see them. Behind her, Casey muttered at her to hurry up. She hissed back at him to be patient, then moved forward. "Don't worry, Chuck," she said to herself, although she knew that it was useless. "I'm coming, just stay alive." She didn't know why she said that. It would do nothing to reassure him, but she muttered it anyway, almost like he was right in front of her and she was just giving him a few tips. But Chuck would need a bit more than a few tips to get out of this.

As she said that, Dmitri shouted in surprise. There was a scuffle and a cry of pain, followed by a loud thump that caused the wall to Sarah's right to shake and almost topple over. Sarah sprinted around the corner and spun to see Chuck wrestling with Dmitri. He had somehow gotten his hands around in front of him and pushed the armed man away from him. He stood with his arms held defensively in front of him, two uneven lengths of rope dangling from his wrists. Dmitri now had blood streaming down his face from a cut on his forehead. The skin around his eye was darkening, suggesting that something had just whacked him in the face. He still held his knife, which was dripping with fresh blood.

As Sarah and Casey cried out and began to run toward them, Dmitri slashed his knife at Chuck. He raised his arms and the blade cut across his forearms. Chuck shouted in pain and stumbled back, and the Russian stepped forward to take advantage of his momentary confusion.

"No!" Sarah and Casey simultaneously shouted. They each raised their weapons and pulled the trigger repeatedly, each shooting him two or three times to kill. Then Casey shot a few more times, just to make sure that he was going to die. When he didn't immediately fall over, Sarah pulled the trigger a few more times until her gun clicked empty. Dmitri jerked backward as each bullet struck him. Red bloomed on his shirt in over a dozen places where the agents had hit their target. He turned his wide eyes on Sarah and Casey as they approached warily. His mouth opened, like he wanted to say something, but it closed again with a loud click and he fell limply to the ground.

Chuck watched the Russian mafia member die in front of him, blood gurgling out of his mouth, and he fell to his knees. His jaw fell open loosely as the man's life drained away, and his eyes were stuck on the body.

"Chuck!" Sarah called. She slid to her knees in front of him and dropped her gun. She grabbed his face and turned it to hers, trying to get him to focus. "Chuck! Look at me. I need you to look at me and stay calm." His brown eyes were still glassy with pain and now were full of shock as well as terror. His chest barely moved with his shallow, heaving breaths.

"Bartowski!" Casey barked. "Wake up!"

Chuck jerked, and Sarah whipped her head around to glare at him. "Quiet, Casey! You aren't helping." She turned back to Chuck, who was slumping forward toward her. She pushed him back a little and wiped blood from his cheek. Or, she tried to. There was so much that it didn't come off as much as smear around. The CIA agents had heard the gunshots and were calling for them. Casey responded and talked them through the maze, but Sarah concentrated on Chuck.

"Hey," she said softly. "Hey, it's okay, it's alright, you're safe." He looked down at his chest, as if he was just noticing all the knife wounds. He raised one hand to touch one, but it stopped halfway there and fell on Sarah's leg, leaving a morbid red handprint on her white pants. She hated seeing him like this. He looked defeated and completely broken, but she couldn't believe that. She wouldn't.

"Chuck," Sarah said soothingly. "You're in shock. I need you to respond to me, okay? Talk to me. What's your name?" Chuck didn't respond. "What's your sister's name?" He still didn't move. "Come on, Chuck. I need you to talk to me. What's my name? Do you remember me?" A note of desperation was creeping into her voice. His hand was still on her leg, and more blood streamed down his forearm and dripped steadily onto her knee.

"They're almost here," Casey said. "Just hold on, Bartowski. You'll be fine." There was a barely noticeable hint of doubt in his voice that he tried to keep under control. Sarah glanced at him worriedly, but Casey responded in his normal curt way. "Don't worry, Walker. He'll live." She guessed he was trying to be comforting, but it really wasn't his forte. She still knew that such an enormous amount of blood loss could be fatal as well as her partner did.

"Oh." It was such a small noise that, if she were a normal person, she might not have noticed it. But Sarah was far from normal. She looked back at him in time to see Chuck finally lift his head. He raised a hand and felt his forehead, checked his hand for blood. When it came away sticky with the stuff, he gasped softly. "Oh," he repeated.

He looked up at her and seemed to come back to reality a little bit. "Sarah," he mumbled.

"Yeah," Sarah said. She blinked back a stray tear. "Yeah, that's me. Do you remember me, Chuck? Do you remember what happened?"

"Sarah," he said one more time, then his head fell forward and hit her chest.

"Chuck!" she cried out. She cradled his head with both arms and tried to ignore the warm sensation of blood soaking into her shirt. "Casey, we need to get him to a hospital right now."

"I know," Casey said. "They should be he-"

He was interrupted by men rounding the corner. One knelt by Sarah and told her to let go of Chuck. She fought to keep her hold on him, but two men grabbed her arms and pulled her back. They shoved her into Casey, who wrapped his arms around her and held her back. She talked at them for a while, trying to tell them exactly how to do their job, as they laid Chuck out on the floor. They wheeled in a stretcher as a medic checked him over, but his back was to Sarah and she couldn't understand anything he said.

"Walker," Casey said sternly. "Calm down. They're trying to help him. Let them help him, unless you want Bartowski to die." Sarah stopped fighting him, but her eyes were still full with tears. They hadn't fallen yet, but this was as close as she ever got to crying. Casey knew that, but he wasn't sure what to do exactly.

Thankfully, he didn't have to do anything. She started to pull herself together and straightened her orange (and now partly red) tank top as a man addressed them. "Agents Casey and Walker, I presume? Where is the nearest hospital? The Intersect needs serious attention immediately."

Sarah pushed herself away from Casey. "Westside Medical. I'll take you there." Her jaw had clenched at the man's casual use of "The Intersect", as if Chuck wasn't a human being, just some computer asset, but she resisted the temptation to deck him right there and then.

Casey snorted. "What, and just leave me here?"

"Obviously, you're coming too. I'm just driving." Sarah began walking briskly toward his car.

Surprisingly, Casey didn't argue. "Fine. But if you crash my Crown Victoria-"

"I won't crash, Casey," she said over her shoulder. "Come on, we need to get going. We have at least a half an hour to go, even speeding the whole way." Thankfully, her voice didn't tremble as she tried to regain control of her emotions.

"Alright, let's go."

As they reached Casey's car, the agents loaded Chuck onto a stretcher and put him in the back of one of their SUV's. _That had better be a secret ambulance or something_ , Sarah thought. She started the engine and pulled out ahead of them onto the road that led to Burbank. She kept the speedometer constantly over eighty miles per hour the entire time, her grip tight on the wheel, her knuckles white. Halfway through the ride, her eyes widened and she cursed. "Damn it. Casey, how are we going to explain this to Ellie and the rest?"

Casey paused. "You can figure that out when we get there. One mission at a time, Walker."

 **Oh. Well, this one turned out a bit shorter than I had intended. It was the other half of my earlier chapter. But it wasn't that bad, right? Sorry about all the excess language in this one. I just figured that Sarah and Casey would be rather stressed at this point in time, so it made sense. I don't say any of that stuff myself, but in order to make a good character (or write about one already created), they have to stay** _ **in**_ **character. Sometimes, language is required.**

 **Well, language is always required, I know. You have to write it in English or whatever language to understand or even read it. Haha. You're so funny. You know what I mean.**

 **And if you give me tips in your reviews on how I can make my story better or easier to understand, don't think I get mad at you for being "nitpicky", as you put it. If I respond to any criticism in particular, that's because I want you to understand why I did what I did. I hope I didn't come across as angry, because I most definitely was not. I appreciate anything that can make my writing better, even if it's more negative. Either way, the amount of positive reviews I've gotten is astounding. I hope you all realize how grateful I am for you guys. What am I at now, 20? Something like that. For my first story, this is way more than I anticipated, and I'm crazy thankful.**

 **(Also, if you remember, certain doctors work at Westside Medical. That will be fun, huh?)**

 **Thanks for reading, and I hope to hear from you soon.**


	5. AU

**Hey guys. Sorry, this is just an author's note. I won't be able to upload for a week or two, because my parents sprung a surprise Christmas road trip on me a few days ago. I won't be able to get to my computer for a while, so you'll have to wait to find out what happens with Chuck and Sarah later. I'm SO sorry about this; I had no idea I was going to be away until this week.**

 **Thanks for your patience and reviews, and thanks to those who have followed/favorited me or this story. It is truly amazing how many people think this story is worth reading. Hopefully, I'll be back in a week or two, so look forward to that!**

 **Oh yeah. Happy holidays!**


	6. Chapter 5

**Hey, people. Thanks for being patient with me. I know that that AU last time was kind of disappointing to some of you, because it wasn't actually part of the story, but here's an actual chapter. Yay… And yes, this is a day early, but I won't be able to upload on Christmas Day, so I figured I would go ahead and be early, instead of waiting another few days. That's okay, right?**

 **This is now… what part is this? Part 5? I think that's right. I didn't think I'd even get this far. Thanks to you all, I have, and it's great. Well, it isn't for Chuck, but he'll be okay.**

 _ **Or will he?**_

 **Nah, I'm just joking with you. Enjoy the story.**

 **(Disclaimer: All of these characters I've been talking about? You know, the nerd and the blonde and all them? I own none of them.)**

Sarah finally pulled into the parking lot of Westside Medical. She parked across a few spots near the entrance, cut the engine and jumped out as fast as she could. The SUV's had been right behind her the entire time, and pulled in right behind her. She caught up to it as it parked and a few agents got out. They opened the back and pulled out Chuck on a stretcher.

Sarah sprinted in through the front doors ahead of them and entered a brightly clit, clean white lobby. She slid to a stop at the front desk. The poor lady sitting there jumped up. "Ma'am?" she asked. Her eyes took in Sarah's dirty clothes and wild-eyed look. "Do you need help?"

"No, I'm fine." Sarah was panting. "But someone's coming in- Chuck Bartowski, Ellie's brother? He's coming in and he needs help right now." The lady's eyes widened and her eyes darted to the door as the men burst through, pushing Chuck with them.

"Oh!" she said in surprise. "Come this way, please!" She ran through a hallway to her left, and the men followed her. Sarah wanted to follow, but she felt like she wouldn't be doing much help. She would just be following and getting in the way of whoever was trying to help Chuck. She sat down heavily in the lobby and rested her head in her hands. She noticed Casey come in and sit a few seats away, but she didn't acknowledge him.

The lady at the front desk had asked her if she needed medical attention. Of course, Sarah had immediately turned it down, for obvious reasons, but she didn't feel too well. She wasn't physically wounded, but she hadn't eaten in almost twenty-four hours, and she was feeling light headed. Her stomach felt like it had shrunken to the size of a raisin. She had a raging headache and her mouth was dry.

Added to all that, she had just seen one of the only people who cared about her tortured. Chuck wasn't meant for her kind of life. He wanted a normal life filled with normal people. This was far from that, but he had tried so hard to do what they needed of him. Granted, he was nowhere near being a conventionally great spy or agent. He was kind, trusting, and extremely afraid of needles, none of which made for the CIA's top agent, but he was brave in his own way.

She leaned back in her seat and rubbed her arms. Casey glanced at her, but didn't say anything. He had to be just as tired as she was, but he didn't show it. Sarah ran her hand through her hair and felt dirt and dust caking it. She brushed off her hands and tried to keep her mind off of Chuck.

She had been sitting there for all of about thirty seconds when someone laughed in a hallway off the lobby. Sarah looked over and recognized the brunette walking toward her. Ellie was on her phone, presumably talking to Devon. She said something, laughed again, then hung up. She looked up and froze when she saw Sarah and Casey.

"Sarah?" she said. "What are you doing here? Are you okay?"

Sarah jumped to her feet. "Ellie! Are you still on your shift?"

Ellie laughed nervously. "No, I just got off. Why? Do you need something?" Her eyes widened as she took in the bloody condition of Sarah's shirt and pants. "Oh my God!" She ran to Sarah and dropped her purse, her doctor instincts kicking in.

"No, I don't need any medical attention, not exactly," Sarah said, stopping Ellie. "But Chuck does."

Ellie's eyes narrowed suspiciously, and she crossed her arms. "What do you mean? Where's Chuck?"

"Uh…" Sarah wasn't sure how to say it. Thankfully, Casey didn't decide to chime in with his trademark bluntness. "He's in the hospital. Right now."

"What?" Ellie shouted. "What happened? Where is he?"

"Look, I'll explain it all later, but right now, you need to go find him and help him." Sarah grabbed Ellie's arm and spun her in the direction the lady had led Chuck. "He's in that direction. Go!"

Ellie didn't stop to question her. She immediately took off, any questions forgotten until later, when she would have time to get full answers. Sarah watched her until she turned out of sight, then sighed. "That could have gone better." She noticed Ellie's purse still on the ground and leaned over to pick it up. She set on the front desk, assuming that the clerk would recognize the purse of one of their best doctors. She walked back to the chairs and sat down.

"Seriously, Casey," she said. "What are we going to tell her? What will we tell Devon and Morgan and all the workers at the Buy More? We can't just tell them all that he's a spy. Then all of this would have been for nothing."

Casey sensed her beginning to get worked up. "Walker, take a breath, will you? We'll think of something."

"Like what, Casey?" she asked, a small bit panicked.

"Well, if we can keep as many people as possible out of his room until he's sufficiently recovered, then we can tell them that he was in a wreck or something."

Sarah considered this. "Well, I suppose we've already lied to them about everything else. What's one hospital trip in the grand scheme of things, right?" She crossed her arms.

"Walker, you should go home and rest. Clean yourself up, eat something. I can wait here until you come back."

Sarah was surprised by this gesture. "Oh, thanks, Casey, but I think I'll stay. I don't want to-"

"Please, spare me your emotional reasons. At least go to the cafeteria, alright?" Sarah tried to argue, but Casey cut her off. "No. Go eat. I'll stay here."

Sarah stood uncertainly. "Fine. Do you want anything?"

"Coffee will be fine," Casey said curtly. He picked up a newspaper from a stand near his chair and opened it, efficiently ignoring her. Sarah sighed and began to walk through the hallway Ellie had come from.

She was really worried about Chuck. She couldn't remember being so afraid for someone else in her life, not even for Bryce or for Cole. She wasn't completely sure why, but she had a sneaking suspicion that it had something to do with their on-and-off relationship.

Sarah shook the thought out of her head. She didn't need any more confusion in her life. She pushed through the doors and into the cafeteria. The smell reminded her of high school. She hadn't been in a cafeteria for a long time, nearing ten years. She stopped and looked around her. No one else was in there, due to it being near midnight. The room behind the food counter was deserted. Sarah wasn't sure if she needed to wait for someone to show up, but she was too impatient.

She spotted a vending machine in the corner next to a coffee machine and went straight for it, getting some black coffee for Casey and a water and some trail mix for herself. It wasn't a full meal in any terms, but Sarah didn't care. She didn't want to leave and possibly miss any updates on Chuck's condition.

She made her way back to the lobby, where she handed the coffee to a silent Casey and sat down again. She started on her trail mix, but she suddenly wasn't very hungry. She put the bag down on the table next to her and sat back.

Despite the bright ceiling lights, Sarah's heavy eyes began to droop. She sleepily checked her watch. It was almost one in the morning. She had stayed up later than this before, but she was physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausted. She blinked, trying to keep her eyes open, but slowly her head tipped back, her eyelids lowered, and Sarah fell asleep.

"Walker. Wake up."

Her eyes opened slowly. Casey was way too close to her face. "Wake up, Walker. You've been here for six hours. You're beginning to stink up the lobby."

"Six hours?" Sarah straightened a little and pushed Casey back. A blanket that had been put over her dung the night slid off. "What- what time is it?"

"It's seven in the morning," Casey said. "That chair can't be comfortable."

Sarah stretched. "You know, it isn't at all." She slumped back and looked at Casey. He had another mug of coffee in his hand, but it didn't look like the vending machine coffee she had gotten him earlier. "What, you didn't get me anything?" she asked, gesturing at his cup.

Casey glanced down. "Did you want something?"

"Nevermind." Sarah suddenly remembered why they were in the hospital lobby. "Have you heard anything about Chuck?"

"Nothing." Casey shook his head. "I haven't seen Ellie either."

"Damn it," Sarah muttered. "They should be done by now, shouldn't they?"

"How should I know?" Casey asked. "I'm not a doctor. Just trust Ellie and go take a shower."

"You'll call me if-"

"I'll call you," Casey interrupted. "Just go and take a shower before you stink up the rest of the hospital. And please change. If one more person sees all that blood on your clothes, someone is going to call the cops on you."

"But we are the cops."

"They don't know that."

An hour later, Sarah met Casey in the castle. He was already in the main room when she came down the stairs. "Hey," Casey said.

Sarah nodded to him and sat down at the table. "Is General Beckman here?"

The screen in front of them lit up. "Yes, I am," General Beckman said. Sarah still had no idea how she timed her appearances like that, but she would never let anyone know that.

"General," Sarah said.

"Hello, Walker, Colonel," General Beckman said. "I believe a congratulations is in order. Andreyev and Lavrentyev were imperative to Pozdnyakov's operation. Now that they are dead, Pozdnyakov himself has fled the country. The handling of this mission has been handed off to the Russian government, and your part in it is complete."

"Thank you, General," Sarah said. "But it was mostly because of Chuck."

General Beckman looked confused. "The asset that got kidnapped because he disobeyed orders?"

Casey grunted in agreement.

Sarah was quick to explain herself. "Well, we wouldn't have found them if Chuck hadn't seen Andreyev outside while we were in the hotel."

"We would have found him eventually," Casey growled. General Beckman nodded in agreement.

"But it would have taken us another day at least, maybe more, depending on how good his security was." Sarah saw the General begin to understand what she was saying. "He might have already been out of the city or the country by the time we figured out where his base of operations was."

Casey shook his head. "Still, Chuck knew that we can't afford to lose the Intersect. If we hadn't found him-"

"But we did find him," Sarah said. She was getting a little annoyed that Casey wouldn't just give Chuck credit where it was due. "We did find him, and we got him out before they got anything out of him."

"The colonel makes a good point, Walker," General Beckman said. Sarah opened her mouth to say something, but the General motioned for her to be quiet. "But I also see what you are trying to say."

"Thank you." Sarah looked pointedly at Casey. He rolled his eyes at her. Sarah wanted to respond in kind, but she suddenly remembered something that wiped away any trace of playfulness. "General?" she asked hesitantly.

"What is it, Walker?" The General sounded slightly annoyed.

"There was-" she paused to try to think of the right way to say it. "Something that Andreyev said."

"What?"

"He said- he said that he had been following Agent Barker, and when he disappeared, they stayed here, until they found us."

"What!"

"He knew we were here. It's why he took Chuck." Sarah shifted slightly, clearly worried.

"He was trying to draw us out," Casey said bluntly. "And he was dangerously close to capturing the single most important asset the CIA and NSA have."

The General tried to calm herself down before she lost control and cracked the screen. "This is not good." Casey grunted in a _no, duh_ way. "Is he the only one who knows about this?"

"We have no way of knowing," Sarah admitted. "He's known for a long time, so it is possible that he had told someone."

"Possible?" Casey asked in disbelief. "Walker, it's more than _possible_. Likely, certain-"

The General frowned again and rubbed her forehead. "This is not good. We need to know who else Andreyev told _now_."

"We know," Sarah said. "We were going to-"

"No," General Beckman cut her off. "I have agents here who can do that. Meanwhile, we need to take every precaution."

Sarah and Casey exchanged suspicious glances. "What do you mean, 'every precaution'?" Casey asked slowly.

General Beckman sighed. "I thought we had already gone over this. In the case of an emergency, the asset must be placed in a secure area until all threats are neutralized."

"But he's in the hospital!" Sarah exclaimed indignantly.

"Be that as it may, he is not safe. I'll send someone in to get him, and you two can leave the city for now."

"No!" Sarah shouted. "We can't just pluck him out of his life without anyone else knowing where he went!"

General Beckman clasped her hands in front of her. "Agent Walker," she said, sternly. "You will obey my orders. I am sending an agent in tonight, and he will take Bartowski to a secure location."

Casey put out a hand to stop Sarah, but she smacked it away angrily. "No! We cannot just- steal him from his family! What will they think when we disappear along with him?"

"Why do you care?" The General asked, her voice tense. "You are being given an order by your government. You swore an oath, Walker. If we tell you to shoot your dog, you do it. If we tell you to sell your car and buy a bike, you do it. If we tell you to shoot your asset-" When she said this, Casey shifted uncomfortably. " _-you_ _do it_." General Beckman glared at Sarah. "Do you understand?"

Sarah crossed her arms. "I do, but we can't do this. Chuck doesn't deserve this! Yes, I would have to do whatever you tell me to, because I'm an agent, but he isn't! You've said it plenty of times yourself! Chuck is not an agent, he's an asset."

"And as such, it is our duty to keep him safe from any and all danger!" General Beckman replied. "I thought you, out of any of us, would understand that the most!"

"I do!" Sarah shouted. "But we can't just pick him up out of his life without explanation!"

"We will explain it to him."

"But what about his family? They'll-"

"Alright!" Casey slammed his hands on the table. "Will you both just shut up?" The General looked surprised that Casey had said anything and stumbled to a halt. Sarah scowled at him and waited with one eyebrow raised.

Casey sighed. "Look, we aren't getting anywhere. General, we captured everyone in the building. If we just question them, we can figure out how much Andreyev knew."

General Beckman paused. "Well," she hedged. "I suppose- that would work."

Sarah gave Casey a thankful look. "Right. In the meantime, we still need to figure out how to handle the situation. There are several civilians who are going to need answers."

"How is Bartowski?" the General asked, ignoring Sarah. She still seemed slightly annoyed.

Sarah and Casey exchanged glances. "Well," Sarah said, "We haven't actually heard anything from Ellie yet-"

"Bartowski's sister," Casey interjected.

"We haven't heard anything yet." Sarah frowned at him. "But we should know as soon as they get out of surgery. Ellie will probably call me, since she thinks I'm his girlfrie-" She was interrupted by her phone ringing. She immediately turned away from the screen and put the phone to her ear. "Hello?"

"Sarah." Ellie sounded exhausted. "Hey. Chuck is out of surgery."

"He is?" Sarah didn't have to fake the relief in her voice. "How is he?"

"He'll be fine," Ellie said. "His heart stopped once, due to shock and loss of blood, but he's doing much better."

"What's going on?" Casey asked.

Sarah covered the phone with one hand and said, "Chuck is out of surgery." Casey tried to ask another question, but Sarah turned away and raised the phone back up to her ear. "Are you okay? You sound exhausted."

Ellie couldn't hide the frustration in her tired voice. "Well, that's what happens when your brother is brought in by his girlfriend in the middle of the night at the end of your shift and is covered in blood and knife wounds and then his heart stops beating and-"

"Ellie," Sarah said soothingly. "Listen, I know it's stressful. I can explain everything, okay? Just promise me something."

"I have no idea how you can explain this." It sounded like Ellie was on the verge of tears. "Fine, what is it?"

"I need you to keep any visitors out of Chuck's room."

There was a tense silence. Casey was watching intently. "You want me," Ellie started, "To keep Chuck's friends and family out of his room after he has just almost died? Why? Why the hell would you want that?"

Sarah knew that Ellie didn't curse very often. She had to be extremely angry. Sarah didn't particularly want to face a protective, angry, tired Ellie. "Listen, Ellie, calm down. I do have a reason for this, okay? Just let me explain."

"This explanation had better be good, Sarah," Ellie warned. "And there had better be a good reason for why there are multiple wounds on my brother's body that all look very, very intentional."

"It is, Ellie," Sarah said. "I swear, everything will make sense." She ignored Casey's mouthed words, _What are you planning, Walker?_

Another pause. "Fine. Where are you?"

Sarah glanced at Casey, who shook his head warningly. "Uh, why don't you go ahead and rest and take a shower. I'll call you in a few hours?"

"Fine. Sarah, I'm trusting you. Don't-" Ellie sighed. "Nevermind. See you later." She was back to sounding tired and almost sad.  
Sarah sighed and hung up. "Before you ask," she said to the others in the room, "Yes, Chuck is out of surgery, and he is doing fine. Apparently, his heart stopped during surgery, but he came out alive."

"Good," General Beckman said curtly.

"What do you suggest we tell everyone about how he got hurt?" Casey asked her.

"Truthfully," General Beckman said, "I have no idea. I'll leave that up to you." And with that, she cut the connection.

"Great," Casey said. "What were you planning on telling Ellie?" When Sarah didn't respond immediately, Casey seemed to understand what was going on. "Walker, you weren't planning on telling her the truth, were you?"

"Well, what else are we supposed to do, Casey?" Sarah asked angrily. "What lie can you think of that would explain all of this and the fact that I just asked her to keep all of his friends out of his room?"

"I don't know!" Casey shouted. "But we can't just go around telling everyone that Chuck is a CIA agent with a supercomputer in his head!"

"I wasn't planning on it," Sarah replied patiently. "But Ellie deserves to know why her little brother has been acting so strange and almost just died!"

Casey threw his hands in the air and slammed them on the table again. "Walker, if this backfires, I'm not helping you get out of it. This is completely on you."

"I know that," Sarah said sharply. "But there isn't a better way to do this. And- I don't want to lie to Ellie anymore. She doesn't trust me anymore." If asked, Sarah would say this only worried her because of her cover, but the thought of Ellie distrusting her almost scared her. She liked the Bartowski family, and she wanted them to like her too.

"God, you're going soft, Walker. You're starting to sound like Bartowski." Casey said contemptuously.

"There are worse people to imitate," Sarah muttered.

"What?" Casey grunted.

"Nothing," Sarah said. "I'm going to go upstairs. If there is nothing else to do, than I have work." Sarah hurried up the stairs before Casey could say anything. She was already wearing her uniform, an orange shirt, white pants, and a white apron. She had changed into it as soon as she got out of the shower.

Almost as soon as she closed the door to the freezer and switched on the OPEN sign, three teenage boys saw her through the front window. They grinned at each other, then started for the door. Sarah readied her blonde smile and thought, _Only a few more hours, Sarah. Only a few more hours until you can get out of here._

 _And face an angry Ellie._

She almost decided she would rather deal with the raging hormones of adolescent boys.

 **Phew. That could have gone badly. I mean, it didn't go** _ **great**_ **, but it could have been worse. This story is nearing its close. I don't know if you will be sad about this or jumping with joy, but it's true. (If you perform the latter, I will be very disappointed in you.) Remember that I write without a particular end goal in mind until I think of it three quarters of the way through the story, so maybe I didn't plan all of this out very well. Either way, I will end it somehow.**

 **Thank you for reading, and Merry Christmas!**


	7. Chapter 6

**Hi! I'm back. This one is actually pretty long. It's not a hundred pages or anything, but it's longer than the others (I think. I haven't literally counted them out or anything). Have fun reading.**

 **Oh, and enjoy handling an angry and confused Ellie.**

 **(Disclaimer: I don't even live in California, or the West for that matter. How could I own any of this?)**

Three hours later, Sarah finally finished her shift. She rushed to turn off the "Open" sign before anyone else could enter. She had noticed a long time ago that the Orange Orange (and the Wienerlicious before it) seemed to always get the same customers, most of which were either high school/college boys or elderly people. She didn't quite understand the reason for the latter group, but the former was pretty obvious.

She hung up her apron in the back and came back out, leaning against the counter. She pulled out her phone and looked at it for a second, steeling herself for the call she was about to make. She dialed Ellie's number and waited nervously.

"Sarah?"

"Yeah, it's me," Sarah replied. After an awkward silence, she said, "So… do you want me to come over to your apartment, or…" She trailed off, unsure what to offer as an alternative.

"Actually, I'm at the hospital right now."

"Oh!" Sarah said. "Are you on call?"

"No," Ellie said. "Actually, I'm here to see my brother. I assume that's okay with you?"

Sarah heard the bitter sarcasm in her voice and tried to ignore it. "Yeah, that's fine. Listen, please-"

"Just get over here," Ellie interrupted. "I'm not in a great mood right now, okay?" Sarah heard her take a deep breath. "I'm sorry. You know I'm not usually like this. I didn't sleep well. Just, get over here quickly, okay?"

"Okay, I will."

"Also, before you leave," Ellie said quickly, before Sarah could hang up. "Devon is here. Is that alright?"

Sarah pursed her lips. She was tempted to say no, but Devon already knew about Chuck's… situation. "Yeah," she sighed. "That's fine. I'll be right there."

"Goodbye, Sarah."

"Bye." Sarah hung up and ran her hand through her hair. _Alright, it's time to go and try to explain this whole mess to Ellie._ She started for the door.

"Walker, you planning on leaving without me?"

Sarah stopped. "Casey? Are you coming too?"

Casey came out of the back room, stuffing a pistol in the back of his belt. "I'm not going to take any blame for this, but I might as well make sure Ellie doesn't try to kill you."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Sarah said sarcastically. "Let's go."

Sarah pushed through the front doors of Westside Medical, Casey close on her heels. She walked up to the front desk, where (thankfully) there was a different nurse than earlier that morning. The nurse glanced up at them from her newspaper, bored, and didn't say anything.

"Excuse me," Sarah said. "Can you tell me where Charles Bartowski is?"

The nurse sighed. "Charles Bartowski?" Sarah nodded, and the nurse turned to the computer. After a few seconds of typing and clicking around, she looked back at Sarah. "Is your name Sarah Walker or John Casey?"

Sarah exchanged looks with Casey. "Uh, yes, I'm Sarah, and that's John." She gestured to Casey behind her.

"Right." The nurse leaned back again. Her eyes slid back to her newspaper. "Room 206, second floor, third door on your right."

"Thank you." Sarah smiled at her before walking to the elevator. As the doors closed, Casey muttered something about useless nurses. "Casey," Sarah scolded, but she didn't expect him to apologize or anything. It was more of an instinctive reaction than anything else.

The elevator doors dinged open, and Sarah stepped out. "Let's go," she said to herself. Honestly, she was more afraid of this conversation than she was of facing several armed men with nothing but her fists. They stopped in front of room 206. Sarah's hand hovered over the door handle.

"Go on, Walker," Casey said, slightly annoyed. "They aren't going to wait for you all day."

Sarah bit back a retort and opened the door. There was a large window that gave a view of the parking lot and the street beyond it. It was a pretty quiet day for the hospital, with only around a couple new patients. Chuck was in a bed against the left wall. Hospital paraphernalia lined the wall above him and to his right, where there was also an empty chair and a useless desk. Two fluorescent lights lit up the room, with the help of the sun outside. It seemed too nice a day for what was happening in Room 206.

"Sarah! Casey!" Devon said. He stood from his chair next to Ellie and put out his hand to shake Casey's. Casey ignored him, and he lowered his arm awkwardly. He seemed slightly more cheerful than his fiance, who was sitting in the corner next to Chuck's bed. "Good to see you."

Sarah smiled politely at him, but her gaze was focused on Chuck, who was motionless on a bed to her left. "Is he doing any better?" she asked.

Devon's smile grew a little strained. "No, he hasn't changed since he got out of surgery, which Ellie did a great job of, by the way." He glanced at her, but her face didn't change. "Anyway," he continued, "Ellie said that you have something to tell us." He leaned a bit closer and whispered, "Is this about the whole.. you know, _spy thing?_ "

Sarah brushed past him without answering and moved toward Chuck. She heard Casey hiss at Devon to keep his mouth shut, but she didn't pay attention. Instead, she sat in the empty chair on the closer side of the bed. Ellie watched her suspiciously, but Sarah tried to keep from looking at her. She gently rested her hand on Chuck's. It was lying limply at his side, unlike his other hand, which was wrapped in gauze and lay on his chest. White sheets were brought up to his waist. There was a bandage wrapped around his forehead and there was a large piece on his cheek and jaw. White gauze covered half of his face, while the other side was bruised black and blue. Sarah didn't like it.

"Sarah," Ellie said softly.

Sarah's head jerked up. "Oh, right. Explanation." She moved back from Chuck, who was breathing steadily. "Okay. Ellie, I need you to stay calm."

Ellie shifted in her chair. "Alright." She looked confused. Devon came and kneeled next to her chair. "It's alright, babe," he said. "I'm right here. It's going to be okay."

Ellie looked even more confused. "Okay… Devon, do you already know what Sarah is about to say?"

Devon tried to look affronted. "What? No, of course no. Why would I… know… anything that you don't... babe?" Casey face palmed.

"Devon," Ellie said slowly. "Why didn't you tell me?" Devon tried to explain, but Ellie would have none of it. "Devon, I thought we promised to not to keep anything from each other!"

"Ellie," Sarah said. "Please, we can explain everything."

Ellie leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms, her eyebrows raised in a challenging manner. "I'm waiting."

Sarah looked at Casey for support, who just shrugged and gestured for her to start. "Um, okay. Well, Chuck and I-" She looked to Casey again for help, but he just raised an eyebrow.

Ellie sat back. "Well?"

Sarah resisted the urge to say something extremely nasty to Casey and smiled. She made a split decision. "Right. We were on a road trip. We were halfway there when-"

"Halfway where?" Ellie asked.

"To- Vegas, of course!" Sarah immediately cursed herself. Why the hell would Chuck want to go to Vegas? He didn't gamble or drink much. This was not how she imagined things going. Ellie had dropped her motherly/sisterly ways and was glaring at Sarah.

"And Chuck wanted to go to Vegas because…?" Ellie prompted.

"Well, I grew up near there, so I wanted to go visit again. Chuck just came along because he's a good-"

"I thought you came from DC?" Ellie pointed out. "That's what you said when I first met you."

Sarah nodded. "Right, right. That was because… I was born in Vegas, but I grew up in DC." Casey sighed disappointedly. Ellie could obviously tell Sarah was lying, but she seemed in no hurry to stop her. She motioned for Sarah to continue.

Sarah had never been this flustered before. Normally, she could think up covers or excuses on the spot, but that was when she was on a mission, talking to a target. None of that was personal. Now, however, she was trying to lie to Ellie, Chuck's sister, and it was way harder than it was supposed to be. Ellie was giving her a look that she had perfected over the years through dealing with a little brother with little parental guidance. She was looking straight through Sarah. Her eyes glinted dangerously.

Said CIA agent swallowed subtly. "Anyway, we were out on the highway. Chuck was driving-"

"You let him drive your Porsche?"

Sarah hesitated. "Yes," she finally said, but with a bit of a questioning lilt at the end. "He begged me to let him, and he's been asking for so long, so I decided to let him."

"Okay," Ellie relented, still disbelieving.

"Anyway, Chuck was driving, and we went around a corner, and someone came flying out from behind the bend and hit us straight on."

"Straight on?" Ellie cocked her head. "And you weren't hurt at all?"

"Well," Sarah conceded. "It was more diagonal, hitting Chuck's door first. It threw us off the road, and-"

"And you suffered no whiplash, bruises, or even the tiniest cuts from broken glass?"

 _Damn it._ There was no way of talking her way out of this one. "Uh… yes?"

Ellie sighed. "Sarah, you drove here in your Porsche. It looked fine to me when you came up."

Casey grunted in amusement, and Sarah turned her own patented glare on him. Ellie rubbed her forehead. "Sarah, the truth, please?"

Sarah rubbed the back of her neck. "Well, I don't think-"

"Oh, for God's sake," Casey said, exasperated. "Walker, any chance you had of getting out of this one is now officially screwed. You have no alternative. Bartowski's sister isn't stupid." Ellie raised her eyebrows at the use of "Bartowski's sister" and the unexpected compliment.

Sarah threw her hands into the air in frustration. "Fine. Okay. Ellie. You've noticed how… strange Chuck has been acting for the past few years, right?"

Ellie's eyes narrowed further. "What do you mean, 'weird'?"

"You know, he doesn't show up on time and comes home at weird times of the night, and he's always out on 'installs'."

"Yeah, I guess, but he said that-"

"Forget what Chuck said," Sarah cut her off. "He's been- well, whatever he's told you, it's not true."

Sarah straightened as Ellie turned up her glare a few notches, if that was even possible. While it had just been _wilting_ a few seconds earlier, it was now a fully fledged death glare. Sarah felt like melting where she stood. "Chuck has been _lying_ to me?" Ellie said sharply. Sarah saw her jaw set. _Uh oh._ "But- I thought-" Ellie glanced at her brother. "We had promised not to keep anything from each other. You too, Devon. Don't think I've forgotten about that." She suddenly turned to her husband. "You aren't off the hook, either."

Sarah could tell she was about to lose it. "Listen, he had no choice," she said quickly, trying to calm down the livid Bartowski.

"No choice." Ellie repeated bitterly. "Sure, he had no choice. What was the alternative? 'Lie to your sister or else the world will be destroyed by terrorists', or something ridiculous like that?"

"Well," Sarah, Casey, and Devon all shared a look. Sarah shrugged. "That's not too far off, Ellie."

"Terrorists." Ellie obviously didn't believe her. "Okay. Sarah, I was willing to listen to you, even after you tried to lie to me, but now you're all just being idiotic. Devon, we will discuss this later. You two-"

"Ellie," Sarah said sternly. "Be quiet and listen."

Ellie wouldn't have it. "No! I know my brother, Sarah. No matter what you may think, he wouldn't keep something like whatever you're trying to say away from me. Ever since our father left us, we promised we would protect each other. We trust each other, Sarah." She noticed Casey clenching his fists in anger. "What, Casey?" She shouted at him. "You have no reason to be angry. You're the one who is trying to make me believe that my brother- my _only brother_ \- is lying to me!"

"That's because he is!" Casey exploded. He took a step forward to meet Ellie. "Can't you see that?"

Devon stepped in between them. "Whoa, guys." He put a hand on Casey's chest and another on Ellie's shoulder. "This is not awesome. Just calm down, and we can all-"

"No, Devon!" Ellie slapped away his hand. "You're part of this too! Who else? Morgan? Jeff?"

"God, no," Casey said in disgust. "I would never team up with those losers."

Sarah tried to defuse the situation. "Ellie," she pleaded. "If you'll just listen to us-"

"Why? Why should I?" Ellie furiously wiped away a tear. "I thought you were his friends! I thought you loved him, Sarah!" Sarah flinched away from her. "Why in the _hell_ are you trying to ruin the relationship between me and my brother? We-"

"Ellie!" Devon said loudly. He didn't normally shout, but he felt like, in this situation, it was needed. "Ellie! Can you just listen for a second?" Ellie whipped her head around to stare at him.  
"Devon?" she asked. "Are you still trying to lie to me? I can't believe this." She ran her hands through her hair.

Before he could answer and ruin his marriage forever before it even started, Sarah cut him off. "Ellie, look." Sarah reached into her pocket and pulled out her wallet.

"Wow, it's your wallet," Ellie said sarcastically. "This changes everything."

Sarah opened it and held her government badge in front of Ellie. "I'm a CIA agent, and Casey is from the NSA." Casey held out his card also, sighing in annoyance. "We were sent here by our respective agencies on a mission."

Ellie took Sarah's card from her hand and studied it. "Please tell me that you're joking, Sarah. This is the worst excuse ever. This is worse than that car crash. I think I'd know if you were from the CIA."

"Nope."

Ellie shook her head. She was still very obviously lost. "Okay," she said slowly. "I'm supposed to believe that a _CIA_ agent and a _NSA_ agent are in _Burbank_?" When no one responded, she paused to think. "Wait. Even if this is true, I still don't understand how Chuck is related to all of this."

Sarah hesitated, trying to think of the right way to tell her. "We're here to protect him, Ellie. He's a spy."

Ellie's face went blank and she froze completely. Sarah waved a hand in front of her, but she didn't move. "Great," Casey remarked. "You caused her to go into shock. Good work, Walker."

Devon grabbed Ellie's face in his hands. "Ellie, hey, are you okay?"

After a few tense moments, Ellie blinked. She thought through the information just dumped on her. "Chuck… is a spy? For the CIA?"

"Well," Sarah hedged. "He isn't - yeah, more or less, he's a spy."

"How did this happen?"

Casey grunted reluctantly, in a _go ahead_ way. Sarah frowned in thought. "Well, you remember Bryce Larkin?"

"How could I forget the person who got my brother kicked out of Stanford and stole his girlfriend?" Ellie said angrily.

"He was a spy." As Ellie processed this, Sarah continued in a rush. "Bryce sent him an email a few years ago. Bryce had gone AWOL earlier and destroyed a supercomputer belonging to the CIA. The computer has every piece of data the CIA has ever collected up to this point. Bryce downloaded it onto a device and, just before he was shot, he sent it to Chuck."

Ellie finally responded. "When was this?" She crossed her arms, as if to say that she was still skeptical.

"Do you remember Chuck's birthday party a couple years ago, when you invited several 'real girls' to try to get him motivated?" Ellie nodded. "He received the email that night."

"And he didn't tell us?" Ellie asked. She still sounded a little hurt. She took Chuck's wounded hand lightly in her own. "So you came to get the email? Why are you still here, then?"

"The email- well, when Chuck opened, he saw all the information in the computer and it downloaded into his brain. He couldn't tell you," Sarah explained. "We found him the next day, and we forbade him from telling anyone. Anyone who knew was in danger, so we wanted to make that number as small as possible. We weren't going to stay as long as we have, but it turned out that Chuck can use the Intersect to-"

"The Intersect?" Ellie asked.

"The CIA supercomputer," Sarah explained. "It's called the Intersect. Anyway, it's in his head permanently now, or as far as we can tell. We haven't found a way to get it out of his head. Well, except for Orion, but that's another story for another time.

"The Intersect is still fully functional in his head, and he can use it to recognize anyone or anything that is in the computer. We call it 'flashing'. Seeing someone in the computer triggers something that makes him remember everything about him."

Ellie opened her mouth, then closed it. Opened it again, shut it. "You're telling me," she eventually said slowly, "That my brother, Chuck, the one working at a Buy More and living with his sister, is a CIA agent with a supercomputer in his head? Is that why he's so good with computers?"

Sarah shook her head quickly. "No, that's all Chuck. Anything previous to that birthday party has nothing to do with us."

"Isn't that awesome?" Devon chimed in.

"Okay," Ellie said quietly. "Okay. Alright, I guess that would explain some things. Wait. Devon, why did you already know this?"

Devon raised his hands in surrender. "Listen, babe, I didn't know about the whole computer part, okay? I thought John was stalking him, so I broke into his house and there were... And I swear, I wanted to tell you as soon as I could, but Chuck told me that it would be safer to keep you in the dark."

"You thought John was stalking him? Honey, that really doesn't help clear it up." Ellie looked back at the sleeping form of her brother and gently rested her hand on his head. "He's been dealing with all of this, alone, for over two years?"

"Well," Sarah said. "He wasn't completely alone."

"Right, he had you." Ellie looked at Sarah gratefully. Sarah looked down. "Wait." Ellie seemed to be realizing something. "He did have you, right? You two have been dating for-" Her eyes narrowed. "You're an agent. You _were_ actually dating, weren't you?"

Sarah pursed her lips. "Well, it- it started as just a cover, to give a legitimate reason as to why I was around him all the time, but we-"

"Oh, no." Ellie stood suddenly and began pacing. "I put so much pressure on him to- oh, God."

"What's wrong, babe?" Devon asked. He tried to put his arms on her shoulders to look at her, but she pushed him away.

"I kept on encouraging him to- nevermind. I just… I must have been making all of this so much more difficult for him." She groaned. "I was just trying to be a good older sister. He didn't seem like he was going anywhere or doing anything with his life. Is this why he hasn't left the Buy More? Ugh, it is, isn't it?" She ran her hands through her hair. "I should have known that he wouldn't have put himself out there like I kept asking. He was still getting over Jill. There was no way someone like you would ever even look at him."

 _Jill._ Sarah had to stop herself from growling. _And what does she mean, no one "like me" would ever look at him? He's pretty cute, for a-_ She cut off that line of thought before it could get any further. "Ellie-" she tried.

"But I was sure that- I mean, you both looked so-" Ellie was lost for words and eventually sagged a bit. "You're both very good actors."

Sarah looked as pained as Ellie. She wanted to say something, to explain how ridiculously complicated things had gotten between them, but she felt like now wasn't the time. Ellie had enough to deal with.

"What happened?" Ellie turned on them. "How did he get like- this?"

Sarah looked pained. "He- Casey and I were in a hotel, trying to plant bugs in the rooms of some Russian mafia members."

"Mafia?"

"We left Chuck in the car, like we usually do. It's normally safer outside in the van than it is in the hotel. It should have been, but, while we were busy, Chuck apparently found some reason to leave the car. I don't know what it was, I haven't been able to ask him yet. But he left the car, and when we came back, he was gone."

"He just- disappeared." Ellie looked suspicious.

"Ask him yourself when he wakes up," Sarah said resignedly. "Anyway, we encountered-" Casey laughed subtly at her phrasing of "encountered". "-a member in the hotel we had been in earlier. We got him to tell us where they took him, then we went and saved Chuck before- before he was killed."

Ellie understood what Sarah didn't want to say. "They tortured him?" she shouted.

"Shh," Sarah tried to hush her, but Ellie would not be hushed.

"How could you let that happen to him?" Her voice was still rising. "You know that his pain tolerance level is practically non-existent, right? There's no way he could withstand something like that, especially if they brought out needles. Oh, God, I hope they didn't bring out needles. His heart probably would have stopped on its own."

"Ellie!" Casey finally shouted. "We did our best and got him back. He's alive, he'll be fine, okay? We all made sure of that."

"But you let him get hurt!"

"Bartowski! Or Woodcomb! Whatever!" Casey roared at Ellie. Even Sarah flinched. "None of us wanted this to happen! Despite what you might think, Walker and I don't want your brother to die. Not only would that ruin this entire operation, but we would both be genuinely sad!" At this, Sarah raised an eyebrow, but Casey was too incensed to notice. "Your brother served his country with honor, which is more than you can say! So suck it up and deal with it!" His face was bright red, and a vein bulged in his neck.

Sarah put a hand on his chest before he could start insulting Devon as well. Ellie had stumbled back a few steps until her back was against her fiance's chest, and she looked genuinely terrified. "Alright, Casey. I think they got your point," Sarah murmured to him.

Ellie looked like she was going to say something, but Chuck muttered and shifted. Every head in the room whipped around to look at him. "Chuck?" Ellie said softly.

Chuck murmured again and moved his head a bit. His eyes slowly opened and he surveyed his surroundings. It took him a minute to realize how many people there were in his room, and even then, he didn't say anything.

"Chuck?" Sarah asked. It sounded much more pitiful than it was supposed to. She was Sarah Walker, the CIA agent who had protected Chuck for over two years. It was natural for her to be worried. But her voice betrayed something a bit deeper than professional courtesy. "Chuck, are you alright?"

Ellie immediately moved back to the chair she had vacated a few minutes earlier. All traces of her earlier anger were gone for now."Chuck," she said. "You're awake."

"No, really," Casey remarked under his breath.

Chuck blinked at his sister. "I am," he said, a bit groggily. "Where am I?"

"Westside Medical," Ellie supplied. Devon kneeled beside her and grinned at Chuck. "Hey man," he said. "Welcome back."

"Thanks," Chuck smiled slowly. His eyes were still half-shut. "Westside- was I in an accident?"

"Well, not exactly." Ellie glanced at Sarah. "You were-"

"Oh." Chuck suddenly remembered why he was in a hospital. "Oh! Ellie, I have to go, I need to talk to Sarah and Casey about-" His words were stopped by a grunt of pain as he tried to sit up and remembered his wounds. "Ow."

"Chuck," Sarah moved a bit closer, on the opposite side of the bad from Ellie. "We're already here."

"That's good," Chuck said. "Um, Ellie, I don't mean to be rude, but could you give us a minute?"

"There's no need to," Sarah said to her. "Chuck, she knows."

"About what?" Chuck asked warily. "I don't know what you're talking about, Sarah," he said pointedly.

Casey rolled his eyes. "Moron."

"Chuck," Sarah said. She glanced at Ellie, then said, "She knows everything."

Chuck still looked confused for a few seconds. "By everything, you don't mean _everything_ , do you?"

Sarah nodded. "There was no other way to explain all of this."

Chuck squeezed his eyes shut and turned to Ellie. He looked at her and smiled nervously. "So, Ellie." He stumbled over his words. "You, uh- you know everything?"

Ellie's eyes were brimming with tears. "Yeah, I do. And Chuck, I am so proud of you." She threw her arms around her brother's neck. Chuck looked extremely confused. "Wait, so you aren't mad at me for lying?"

"I'm- I think-" Ellie changed her tack. "You've been saving lives. That's more important than than just listening to your older sister."

Casey harrumphed and leaned against the back wall, as far away as he could get. "We're mad at you, though. Why the hell did you leave the car, Bartowski?"

"Heh, that's actually a good question." Chuck leaned his head against the backboard of the bed. "I was in the back of the van, and I meant to stay in it, I swear."

"Chuck, just tell us what happened." Sarah said wearily.

"Well, you were in the hotel, right, and I was in the car, like I always am, just watching you do your thing and… and anyway, I saw someone walk in front of the car and I flashed on him. It was Dmitri Andreyev, the guy who-"

"We know," Sarah said, trying to avoid making him talk about what happened to him exactly, in the warehouse.

"Well, I tried to call you, but you were too busy trying to get past another guard, and Casey ignored me." Ellie and Sarah both sent a glare in his direction. He rolled his eyes. Chuck continued, "I didn't know what to do, exactly, but I knew that he was who you were looking for, so I got out and I talked to him."

"What?" Ellie and Sarah exclaimed at the same time.

"Dude," Devon said wisely. "That is not awesome."

"You talked to a ringleader of a Russian mafia?" Casey growled. "Without backup?"

"What else was I supposed to do? Let him walk away?"

"Yes!" Everyone said in unison, in varying tones of annoyance.

"Well, I'm sorry." Chuck said petulantly. He tried to cross his arms, but his wounded hand bumped his other one and he grimaced. Ellie immediately tried to help him, but he waved her off. "I did what seemed best at the time, okay?"

"Yeah, and that ended so well," Ellie said. "So they just…" she searched for the right word. "They just kidnapped you?"

"Basically. I think I might have stammered a bit, and Dmitri got suspicious. It turned out that that didn't matter anyway, because he was already looking for me. He had been out searching for me just earlier, and I made his day by talking to him."

Sarah rested her face in her hand. "Oh, Chuck."

"This is why you're supposed to _stay in the car,_ Bartowski." Casey's blood pressure level must have been shooting way up my this point. His face was turning bright red again, like it always did when he got extremely mad at someone.

"So," Chuck said hurriedly. "I woke up in that room in the warehouse, alone, without my button down. I'm going to need another one, my the way," he said to Ellie. "That was my best shirt."

"Sure," Ellie said offhandedly. "Go on."

"Right." Chuck took a breath before continuing. "I was in there for a few minutes before Andreyev and the other guy, Lavrentyev, came in. They kept asking me who the Intersect was and why there were two agents protecting me."

"You're the Intersect, right?" Devon clarified.

"Right."

"Awesome."

"So I didn't say anything, and Andreyev got mad at me and left. Then- well, Lavrentyev brought out a table with a dozen knives and stuff." Chuck's voice grew smaller.

"Oh, God," Sarah said under her breath. She couldn't imagine how brave he must have been to withstand that without even her or Casey there to help him. She tried to keep the look of horror off her face.

Ellie wasn't doing well. She looked like she was going back into shock. "Why did you try to endure all of that? You could have just told them and waited for Sarah and John to show up. We all know that you can't endure high levels of pain very well, and-"

"That's exactly why!" Chuck shouted. He immediately winced and held his arm against his stomach. "Every time we get captured, Sarah and Casey are all stoic and 'I'll never tell you anything' and it's really impressive. Meanwhile, I freak out, or tell everything, or faint to get out of a bad situation, which still hasn't worked, by the way." Sarah tried to get a word in, but Chuck wasn't finished.

"Yeah, remember Cole? He was tortured twice and shot twice, saving _you_ , and he never said anything!" He wasn't trying to explain himself to Ellie as much as to Sarah. "And it was really cool when he came back all covered in blood and was still all calm and said, 'Don't worry, I didn't tell them anything,' and it drove me insane! He was really nice, too! And his damn sexy accent!" As Chuck railed on, Sarah surreptitiously motioned for Ellie, Devon, and Casey to leave. Ellie and Devon exchanged worried looks, but they quietly left the room. Casey looked extremely annoyed, but he closed the door softly behind them.

Chuck was still going. "-he impressed you so much. He was the quintessential spy. You're like that too, Sarah! You're the perfect spy. If you're captured, you'll never give in, and you don't have feelings to mess up everything, because 'spies don't fall in love', right?" Sarah sat back down next to him, silently. "You don't have attachments, because that makes you weak. That way, you can just up and leave if you have to without feeling guilty. I understand that, but I'm not wired that way!" He had probably noticed everyone else leaving, but he was now completely focused on Sarah.

"So, when I realized what was going on, and that I couldn't avoid it, I decided that I wasn't going to be like that anymore!" Chuck was shouting now. "I don't want to be the useless one, okay? I thought about how you are, and Casey, and Cole and Bryce and everyone else, and I promised myself that I wouldn't tell Andreyev or Lavrentyev anything, because that's what a real spy would do."

He breathed in, about to say more, but Sarah interrupted him. "Chuck, enough."

"No, I'm not fini-"

"Just shut up," Sarah said, and she leaned in and kissed him on the mouth. Chuck went very still for a few seconds, then responded slowly. Sarah usually didn't do impulsive things like that. She had learned long ago that she was left completely vulnerable when she gave in to the spontaneous thoughts in her head, but, somehow, she felt safe around Chuck in a way she had never felt before, not even with highly trained agents like Bryce Larkin or Cole Barker. Chuck would always protect her at any cost. It had taken her a long time to realize that, despite how many times he had told her himself.

And now she was kissing him. Of all the stupid, idiotic things to do at that moment, she decided to kiss him. And she really, _really_ didn't regret it. She had kissed plenty of men (perks of going undercover), and most of them were better and more experienced than Chuck. But he made up for it in almost innocent enthusiasm, something that none of the others had.

She pulled away and looked at Chuck. His eyes opened wide in surprise and he muttered, "That was a nice way to shut me up."

"Chuck, you idiot," she said. "You don't need to get tortured to try to impress me."

Chuck was still a little dazed. "But- you kissed Cole."

Sarah sighed. "You saw that?"

He looked slightly embarrassed. "I- the cameras-on the computer in the Orange Orange."

"Really?" Sarah decided to ignore that. "Chuck, he kissed me. I'm not- he's not- there's nothing there, alright?"

"But he's handsome and brave and-"

"And you are too," Sarah said. "Don't you know that? You may have your own, slightly unorthodox methods, but you are undeniably brave, Chuck." She looked down briefly. "And all that about caring for other people? We may all tell you it's useless, but that's one of your best qualities. Honestly, some of us are a bit jealous. We don't have family and friends like you do. It may not make for a brilliant spy, but it definitely makes for an interesting one. And it's worked, too. I mean, how many missions have you failed?" She waited for a second, but Chuck didn't say anything. "The answer is none, Chuck. Besides, it's a good thing to have friends. I may not have understood that in the beginning, but I do now. Despite all the problems they cause, they're always worth it."

"What about Bryce?" Chuck challenged.

"What about him?" Her response was obviously not the one Chuck had expected, and he frowned.

"You don't- you don't like him?"

Sarah thought carefully about how she would answer this. "I do like him, Chuck. But not like that. I used to- I thought that I did, ever since we met in Lisbon. He was handsome, and kind, and brave…" She stopped when she saw Chuck tensing. "But no, I don't like him that way. Not since I came here."

Chuck sighed. "So all I did in that warehouse was for no reason?"

Sarah tried to stifle her laughter. "Was your only reason to impress me?"

"Not exactly." Chuck's eyes fell on her lips again. "But I can't deny that it was one of them."

Sarah let herself laugh and wrapped her hands around his neck. "Well, it worked admirably." She kissed him again, and this time he responded enthusiastically, putting his hand on her hips and pulling her closer. Her heart sped up, thumping erratically. Sarah shifted forward on his bed, and the kiss became a bit more desperate, unlike the chaste one earlier. Chuck angled his head to kiss her deeper, and she smiled slightly. There wasn't much passion in this kiss (they were in a hospital and Chuck was wounded, for God's sake), but they knew there would be plenty of time for that later.

Sarah was already anticipating it.  
Chuck groaned, but Sarah could detect the note of pain in it. She pushed him back slightly and rested her forehead on his. They both were breathing heavily. "Are you okay?" she asked, breathlessly.

"I'm fine," Chuck said. "I just- I'm still little sore. You know, knives and all that."

Sarah giggled, then immediately thought, _Did I just giggle? What is wrong with you, Sarah? You don't giggle._

Chuck evidently felt the same way. "Oh, was that a giggle, Walker?" He grinned at the blush that was slowly but steadily making its way onto her face. "Huzzah! I have done the impossible!"

"Huzzah?" Sarah asked incredulously.

"What?" Chuck asked in mock confusion. "Do you expect me to be boring and say 'yay' or something? Come on, Sarah, I thought you knew me better than that."

"You nerd," Sarah said, although the word was becoming less of an insult and more of a term of endearment. "We should probably let everyone back in."

"Yeah, probably," Chuck said reluctantly. As she stood, he asked, "By the way, what are we going to tell Morgan and everyone else? We can't tell them what actually happened."

Sarah nodded. "I think we'll just stick with a car wreck. Pretty basic, but that makes it easier to keep up with without contradicting yourself. Also, it explains all the cuts." Her voice quieted as she finished talking.

"Hey, it's okay." Chuck pulled her back down next to him, choosing to ignore the fact that she was trying to leave. He paused, trying to think of something to say, to keep her with him for a bit longer. "Weren't there others in that warehouse?" he eventually said lamely.

Sarah nodded. "There were some more upstairs and outside, but the agents the General sent in took care of them." She looked up at Chuck and said, seriously, "I'm sorry you had to see Andreyev die like that, Chuck. I know you don't- that it's hard for you."

Chuck tried to laugh it off. "Nah, it's okay. I'm fine, see?" She could tell he was lying. After being around Chuck for so long, Sarah had learned long ago what his giveaways were.

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and held her against his chest. Sarah stiffened and tried to push him away, but he didn't let go, and she eventually relaxed into him, burying her face in his neck. Chuck kissed the top of her head and rested his chin on her hair until she remembered where they were, and that Casey was probably fuming by this point.

She gently untangled herself from his arms and smiled at him. They could talk about what had happened later, but for now, there were a lot of questions Chuck needed to answer still. "I'll go get the others," she said. When Chuck nodded, Sarah moved to the front of the room and opened the door to see a glowering Casey leaning against the wall opposite her. He had an impressive scowl set on his face and his arms were crossed. "Finally," he complained, and he shoved off the wall and pushed past her.

Sarah watched him go past and glanced over to Ellie, who was sitting on a chair with her back facing where Casey had been. Her back radiated anger. "Uh, are you okay?"

Ellie's back stiffened. Devon popped out from in front of her. "Yeah, we're fine. We-" he glanced at his fiance- "just had a little fight with John, is all."

"A little fight, huh?" Sarah asked. She raised an eyebrow. "Right, Well, if you want to talk to Chuck before he passes out again, I suggest you get over it and come in." Ellie didn't say anything or move for a few seconds. Devon put a hand on her shoulder, and she finally sighed and stood.

As she passed Sarah, Ellie lightly grabbed her arm and whispered, "Whatever is going on between you and Chuck, just know that you're the best thing that has ever happened to him, real relationship or not." Devon decided to walk on. Ellie continued, "I have no idea what is happening, since Chuck probably hasn't really told me anything that wasn't for your cover, but what I do know is that I've never seen him as happy as he has been for the past few years, when you and he were on good terms." She leaned in a bit closer. "Also, I much prefer you over your partner."

"Casey?" Sarah asked, but Ellie was already walking into the room. Sarah took a few seconds to think about what she had just heard. Of course Ellie prefered her over Casey (most people do; Casey scares them too much), but she wasn't so sure about the first part. She was certain that she had only complicated everything for Chuck, not made everything better.

Of course, that kiss they had shared a few minutes earlier made her start to think that, just maybe, Ellie was right. Maybe _she_ wasn't the best thing to happen to _him_ (she didn't want to go that far), but Chuck did seem happier with her around.

As she walked back into Chuck's room and he grinned sleepily at her, she thought again about just how close she had gotten to losing him. Possibly the only thing that she did know for sure now, was that Chuck Bartowski was definitely the best thing that had ever happened to _her_ , and she wasn't going to let him out of her sight ever again.

 **Alright. We made it past Ellie. That's quite the achievement. I'm proud of you. If you couldn't tell, I've never written a kiss scene before, so if it seemed stiff, that's why. I'm sorry I'm not a kissing expert like all of you out there, but I did my best, so deal with it. I also don't want to go into much detail or get explicit with anything. I'm not that kind of person.**

 **Did I do okay with writing Ellie? At first, this was much shorter, then I realized, "Wait. Ellie would be pretty mad about all of this." So I had to add in a lot more shouting and annoyance in general. I think it sounded realistic, but if you didn't think so, please tell me, and I can try to rewrite it. I would actually really hate doing that, so hopefully none of you think it's that bad.**

 **Anyhoo, now that we've gotten all this out of the way, we're really close to finishing the story. I think the next chapter will be the last one. Chuck will finally be out of this chaos that is my writing. Not for long, though. I'll probably end up writing another one.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	8. Chapter 7

**Welcome to the last part of STAY IN THE CAR! Before I continue, I have to say that I am really happy that you guys liked that last chapter. It was definitely the one I've been most nervous about, since it deals with a few things that you absolutely have to get right, like telling Ellie about the CIA, and Chuck and Sarah kissing. I re-read it over a dozen times. You have no idea.**

 **Despite any and all copious amounts of nervousness, I've had a lot of fun writing this. I hope you all have had fun reading it. Like I said in the very beginning, I try to make it as enjoyable as possible. That includes grammar, spelling, and plot line. I don't know about you, but I hate it when people write like this:**

" **hey i want to talk to you" he said**

" **really about what" i asked curiosly**

" **i just really like hangin out with you" he said nervusly**

" **what do you mean" i asked "are you saying that you like me"**

" **i dont know i was just thinking that we should go out some time" he said**

" **really"**

" **yeah"**

" **okay"**

 **and then we went on a date and we kissed and it was great the end**

 **Am I the only one? It has no punctuation, spelling, or story. How does "I like hanging out with you" get interpreted as "I like you" anyway? I don't know. That's why I don't like it. It's ridiculous. (Unless one of you write like that, in which case, I love reading it. I read it all the time. It's great. Yeahhhhh…) Anyway, that doesn't matter. What matters is that Chuck is still in the hospital. Enjoy.**

 **(Disclaimer: For the last time, nothing that I own is even near Burbank. Sadly, Chuck and his cohorts are too far away for me to own.)**

A few days later, his doctor (Ellie) finally decided that Chuck could leave the hospital. As soon as she said so, Chuck threw off his sheets and sat up. He stretched his arms out and yawned hugely. He stood shakily, ignoring the lingering ache in his chest.

"Wait one second," Ellie said. She put her hand on his chest and gently pushed him back down. "Do you want to walk around with that bandage on your face?"

"Oh, right." Chuck leaned back. "I forgot about it."

"Sure," Ellie said, not completely believing him. She pulled on some latex gloves and sat next to her brother. "Ready?"

"Yeah, totally ready." Chuck tried to hide the nervousness in his voice, but he anxiously made fists in the sheets behind him on the bed as he spoke. Ellie knew him too well to miss it.

"You can face the mafia and terrorists, but you're scared of me taking off your bandage?" Ellie asked incredulously. Chuck was silent. "You know what, don't answer that." Ellie turned toward him and braced on hand on his head. "I'm going to try to do this as painlessly as possible, okay?"

"Sounds good," Chuck smiled restlessly. His eyes followed Ellie's hand as she pinched the top of the bandage. She looked him in the eye and smiled and encouragingly, then started to peel it off. Chuck immediately screeched in pain and jerked back. Ellie cried out in surprise and her hand recoiled. Both of these actions culminated in the bandage getting ripped off loudly, causing more pain than there needed to be.

"Ow!" Chuck screamed. He brought his hand up and covered his cheek. "Ellie!"

"What?" Ellie asked defensively. "That wasn't my fault!"

"You're the doctor!" Chuck scowled and rubbed his cheek tenderly. "Come on, Ellie."

Ellie rolled her eyes heavenward. "Just let me take a good look at it before you go running off chasing men with guns, okay?"

"Fine," Chuck mumbled reluctantly. He let Ellie move his hand away and didn't miss her stifled gasp. Ellie tried to be purely professional as she studied her brother's face, but he couldn't miss the look in her eyes. "That bad, huh?"

"What?" Ellie looked slightly guilty. "No, no, it's not nearly as bad… as…"

Chuck smiled sadly at her. "As…?"

Ellie changed the subject. "That's not important. The important thing is that it's healed now, so that's good." Her face fell when Chuck asked for a mirror. She hesitantly stood and grabbed a small handheld mirror off a table a few feet away. Chuck took it from her hand and lifted it in front of his face.

He swallowed and he tightened his grip, his knuckles turning white. "Well," he said, chuckling unconvincingly. "That's not nearly as bad as I feared it was. You had me worried there, Ellie."

A small laugh burst out of her and she sat next to him again, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He put the mirror down and hugged her waist. They stayed that way for a minute or two, then Ellie leaned back and looked Chuck in the eyes.

"My shift isn't over yet," she said apologetically.

"Nah, you're fine," Chuck reassured her. "I don't need a babysitter. I do, however, need my clothes. Do you have any here?"

Ellie nodded, her eyes lighting up. "Yeah, Sarah brought some in yesterday."

"Sarah? She did?" Chuck said in disbelief. "Oh. I guess I should go thank her."

Ellie chuckled and moved to the door. "I'll go get them. I'll be right back."

"Okay," Chuck called through the closing door. He glanced back at the mirror and felt an irresistible urge to look at his face in it again. He wrapped his fingers around it and set in his lap, angling it up to his face. From such a low angle, he couldn't see the long, narrow scar as well, but he knew it was there. At least three or four inches of pale skin slightly raised from the rest of his face. _At least it will make for a good story,_ Chuck said.

 _Actually, I can't tell anyone how I really got it, so forget that._

Ellie burst back in through the door, causing Chuck to drop the mirror. She tried to ignore it and held out a pair of jeans, and t-shirt, and his a new pair of shoes.

"Aw, you got me new shoes?" Chuck stood to take the pile. "You shouldn't have."

"That's why I didn't." She giggled at Chuck's obvious look of confusion. "Sarah, remember?"

"She knows my shoe size?"

"Well, she had your old ones still."

"Oh. Okay." Chuck looked at the clothes in his hands. "You don't mind if I…" He gestured to the bathroom behind Ellie.  
"No, go ahead." Ellie stepped back and let him pass by her to the bathroom. He changed quickly and brought the hospital robe back out. Ellie told him to leave it on the bed, and he did so, tossing it in a pile on top of the mirror. She asked if he wanted her to drive him home, but Chuck gently refused. "Nah, I'm good. You go back to saving lives, okay? I'll head back home. There is a car I can take back home, right?"

Ellie nodded. "You can take Devon's." She quickly ran off again to grab her fiance's keys and tossed them to her brother. She studied him again, her gaze sliding to his cheek, then back to his eyes. "I'm glad you're okay," she eventually said. Chuck shrugged.

"Sure, if this is what you call fine. Although, I'm sure you've seen much worse, huh?" Chuck suddenly swayed a little, but regained his balance in time to refuse Ellie's immediate attempt to hold him up. He did take her hand in his, and they walked to the doors of the hospital, talking and teasing like any good siblings do. Ellie had to occasionally restrain herself from good-naturedly punching him in the shoulder, but otherwise, they looked like they used to, before the Intersect and the CIA happened.

Ellie stopped a few feet in front of the doors. "I guess I'll see you tonight?"

Chuck rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't really have anywhere else to go, do I?"

"Nope."

"Then, yep, see you then." Chuck waved to her and pushed through the doors. Ellie waved back to him and waited for a few moments, watching her brother leave the hospital. She had always imagined Chuck as her younger brother, the sibling she had to protect. As much as she kept telling him to grow up, she was sad to see that that was exactly what was happening. The carefree, goofy guy that he had been was a comforting reminder of when they were younger.

And now, he was a spy for the CIA. She couldn't protect him anymore. She was still wrapping her mind around the fact that he wouldn't need her now that he had Sarah and Casey and the entire freaking government. Of course, knowing him, he wouldn't be physically going anywhere, except for the occasional out of town mission, but it still made Ellie sad.

She wouldn't have time to dwell on it, however. She had plenty of people to take care of in that hospital already, and she was more than up to the task. "Doctor Bartowski!" Someone behind her yelled, breathing heavily. "There's been an accident! We need you immediately!"

Ellie watched Chuck pull out of the parking lot, then turned to the flustered nurse and nodded determinedly. "Alright, let's go." And she ran back into the hospital.

 **-LINE BREAK-**

Chuck pulled into the parking lot in front of his apartment building and turned off the engine. He got out and stood for a moment, taking in a sight he hadn't been sure he would ever see again. He never thought he would miss the old place, but the simplest things have a sudden charm to them after you face certain death.

He stuffed Devon's keys in his pocket and walked through the large gate into the courtyard. The fountain gurgled cheerfully, and a slight breeze rustled Chuck's clothes. He walked to his front door and was about to unlock it when he heard another door opening. "Bartowski!"

 _Casey._ Chuck turned to see the gruff NSA agent standing in the doorway to his apartment. When he saw Chuck's now-scarred face, he grunted. "Impressive, Bartowski. Now you look the part of a spy."

Chuck smiled sarcastically. "Thanks, Casey. That really means a lot."

Casey gave his own sarcastic smile. "No problem." The smile gave way to a more serious look. "Seriously. I'm glad you're not dead."

Chuck was surprised. He stammered a bit, trying to find the right response. Casey watched him for a few seconds, then glanced outside the gate. He huffed and stepped back inside. "See you later, Bartowski." And he shut the door loudly.

Chuck couldn't think of a reason for his abrupt departure until he saw the blonde walking into the courtyard. Sarah saw him and smiled happily. She was on her phone, but she returned his smile and gestured for him to wait.

"Yes, General?" she asked. She dropped the smile and her face became more tense. She glanced at Chuck as the General talked to her. "Right, that was all of them," she said. A pause. "Yes. … And? …" The General said something, and Sarah visibly relaxed, tension going out of her shoulders. She looked back at Chuck, and the smile was back. "Really? Well, I- oh. Thank you, General, I-" Sarah blinked. "Right." She stuffed the phone in her back pocket and looked up.

"What was that about?" Chuck asked.

Sarah shrugged. "Nothing. Just something the General and I had to clear up."

"It seemed pretty important. You were all tense at the beginning."

"Yeah, well, it was 'pretty important', I guess. There were some things we had to wrap up, some loose ends we needed to take care of. The important thing is, that you're safe, and you'll be able to stay here."

"Was that ever in doubt?" Chuck asked, slightly curious.

Sarah ignored the question and said, "So Ellie finally let… you…" She trailed off. She walked the rest of the way to the fountain, where Chuck met her. Her eyes were drawn to his cheek.

Chuck looked down self consciously. He tried to think of something clever to say about the new scar, but he came up empty and just made it awkward. Sarah put a hand on his chin and lifted it so she could see his eyes. She frowned a little, then traced the scar with her finger.  
"I'm sorry, Chuck."

Chuck was immediately confused. "Sorry? Sorry for what? Sarah, you have no reason-"

"I should have been there, Chuck." Her face crumpled a little, and she sat heavily on the side of the fountain. Chuck knelt beside her to get to her eye level. "I lost you, and you got injured, and- I should have been there. If I had been there, you wouldn't have gotten hurt-"

"And you would have," Chuck finished for her. "Which would have been worse. Honestly, I probably would have gotten hurt somehow anyway. I mean, I sprained my ankle my coming in through a window."

His attempt at humor did nothing to cheer her up. She looked away and blinked back tears angrily. "Damn it, Chuck, can't you let me apologize without you trying to take the blame? Not everything is your fault."

"But this was," Chuck persisted. "I was the one who got out of the car when you told me to stay in it. Sarah, it wasn't your fault." Sarah bit her lip. Her gaze went back to his scar, and her shoulders slumped. It was barely perceptible, but Chuck saw it. He sat on the fountain next to her. "It was all my fault. Aren't you used to this my now?"

"What? You messing everything up?"

Chuck paused. "Well, that's a blunt way of putting it, but yeah."

Sarah chuckled and wiped her eyes. Chuck watched her with a look of absolute confusion on his face, which made her laugh harder. "Chuck," she said between breaths. "I am used to it. God knows I am." Chuck frowned, and Sarah quickly continued. "But I think I'm beginning to enjoy it."

"Enjoy it?" Chuck asked, his eyebrows furrowed.

"Who else can kill multiple people with the Morgan, a move so defensive it couldn't wound a fly? Who else can juggle a life of spy work with an overprotective sister, a crazy best friend, an awesome soon-to-be brother-in-law, and work at the Buy More without blowing it? Who else can save two government agents by falling through a window and dropping a gun? Who else can defuse a bomb by looking up porn?" Sarah leaned in and said in a low voice, "The answer to that is no one."

Chuck shrugged. "I don't know. That all sounds pretty unheroic."

Sarah shook her head in good-natured frustration. "Chuck, if it weren't for you, we probably wouldn't have caught most of these bad guys. Brute force and firepower can only get you so far, which is a lesson that Casey could afford to learn. Seriously." she said, subtly sending a glance over her shoulder at Casey's apartment. "Think of all the good you've done in only two years. Ever since Bryce sent you that email, you've saved everyone in this city several times over. Hell, you've saved the _country_ repeatedly. That is something only a few people can boast."

Chuck laughed nervously. "It is kind of weird how many criminals stop in Burbank, isn't it?"

Sarah waved a hand. "That's beside the point. You aren't getting it, Chuck." She shifted closer to him and looked him in the eyes. "You are a spy," she said slowly, emphasizing each word. "You are a damn good one, no matter what you may think about it, and you just don't see yet how much good you've done. Not only for everyone else, but for me too." She hesitated here, thinking of the right words. She had never really done this before, all this opening up to people. She felt really awkward, but she forced herself to keep talking.

"Chuck, before I got here, I had only my job. I didn't have any friends outside the CIA, and those I had were spotty at best. I didn't really have a concept of family other than my father, who you know wasn't a great role model. I threw myself into my work and tried to ignore anyone else. If I ever forgot to do that, I got burned, more times than I care to count. Before I was even assigned here, I had promised myself that it would never happen again.

"But then we heard that Bryce sent a top secret email to someone in Burbank, and I walked into a Buy More, and I met a cute nerd who could fix my phone." Chuck was motionless, watching her with almost disconcerting concentration. She couldn't keep eye contact and looked away. "I met his family and his weird friends, and I couldn't help feeling kind of like I had missed out on something. Sure, they had their problems, but that made them more perfect. I had dinner with his sister and her boyfriend, and I listened to his stupid conversations with his best friend-"

"You listen to those?" Chuck interrupted.

Sarah pushed on. "The point is, there are a lot of good things about you, Chuck. You're a naturally kind person. You try to see the good in people, and that makes you special. It makes you so different from everyone else I know, and I didn't realize how much I appreciate it until you disappeared from that car a week ago. I almost wish I had never met you, because you make everything so much more confusing and complicated. You try to talk about your feelings on missions and you're annoying and dorky-"

"Thanks."

"But you're brilliant and thoughtful and you genuinely care about others." Sarah ignored the blaring alarms in her head telling her to shut up. "And I-"

Chuck rested his hand on her arm. Sarah stumbled to a stop and gritted her teeth. "I'm sorry. I started to ramble."

Chuck laughed softly. "I guess that's one more thing that's rubbed off on you, huh?" He took her smaller hands in his own. "Listen, I think I understand what you're saying. And I know that you don't like talking about yourself, so I won't make you talk anymore." He ducked a bit lower to try to catch her eye. She glanced at him, and he grinned happily. "But, I think I will have you know that that was the single most beautiful thing I have ever heard anyone say to me." He moved a little bit closer.

Sarah's eyes rose to meet his as he spoke. She straightened a little bit, and tried not to stare at the new scar that kept reminding her of how she had almost lost him. Chuck tried to catch her gaze again. "And I think that you should stop thinking of this scar as a sign of your failure," he said. Sarah was impressed at how he seemed to know exactly what she was thinking. "Try to think of it as a sign that I'm actually dumb enough to start a conversation with a known madman with guns." Sarah couldn't hold back the reluctant smile that spread across her face at his blunt interpretation of events.

"Not one of your finer moments, true," she conceded. "But I-"

She was interrupted by a banshee-like shriek coming from the gate. Sarah spun to see where the unearthly noise had come from. Chuck jumped up as well and almost fell over.

"Chuck!"

"Oh no," Chuck muttered under his breath. "Hey, buddy," he called. "You don't have to-"

He didn't have a chance to finish his sentence before Morgan vaulted the fountain and tackled him to the ground. "Chuck!" he shouted again. "You're back!"

Chuck felt like he had been hit by a small truck. "Hey, Morgan," he grunted. "Can you -ow."

Sarah chuckled. "Morgan, I don't think he can breathe." Morgan glanced up at his best friend and noticed how red his face was.  
"Oh!" He scrambled off of him and got to his knees. "Sorry, Chuck," he said, a little embarrassed. "I just haven't been able to see you since you were in that wreck and oh my GOD that is awesome!"

Chuck and Sarah both frowned at him. "What?" Chuck asked.

"Your scar!" Morgan exclaimed excitedly. "That is wicked, dude! Now you can tell everyone that you got in a knife fight and saved someone's life, or something! That is so cool!"

"Oh, right. The scar." Chuck tried to sound as enthusiastic as Morgan was, but he couldn't muster up the energy to do so. "Thanks. I'm glad you like it, I guess." He lilted the end of his words like he was asking a question.

Morgan cackled in delight. "Now you can come back and talk some sense into Emmet. Oh man, now that he's the manager of the store, everything is going crazy!" He gestured excitedly and almost whacked Sarah in the face, but he didn't seem to notice. "I think Big Mike is on the verge of strangling me on the spot. And everyone else hates me because stupid Emmet-"

"Okay, okay," Chuck grunted. "Enough information. I think I understood all that- Emmet replacing Big Mike, which I already knew about, everyone hating you, which is nothing new- just wait a second, okay Morgan?"

"Oh." Morgan backed up a little. "Right. Sorry, man, I'm just really excited that you're out of the hospital." The ridiculous grin slowly returned. "I'm really glad to see you, man." He stepped forward again to try to hug Chuck or something, but Sarah stopped him.

She put out her hand and helped Chuck to his feet. "Careful, Morgan. He only just got out of the hospital. I don't think Ellie will be happy if you send him back."

Morgan saw the sense in what she said and chuckled nervously. "Yeah, I guess so." He noticed Chuck slumping a little and stood awkwardly. "Well, you look all tuckered out, so I'll just head on back to the Buy More and tell everyone you'll be back tomorrow." He turned to leave, then stopped. "Oh, and what do you want me to tell everyone?"

"Tell everyone about what?" Chuck asked, confused.

"The scar," Morgan said, like it was obvious. "How you got the scar."

"Oh." Chuck shrugged. "I don't know, maybe just tell them I was in a car wreck and a piece of glass hit my face, since that's what actually happened."

Morgan rolled his eyes. "Fine. If you want to be boring, I won't stop you." He finally noticed the subtle looks Sarah and Chuck were giving each other, and he picked up on the tension between them. He took a step back. "Right, well, I'm just going to go now. You kids have fun, I'll go back to work." He waved awkwardly and continued backing out of the courtyard until he passed the gate, where he turned and ran to his car.

Sarah shook her head. Chuck noticed and couldn't help his instinctive urge to protect him. "He's a good guy, if a little… weird at times," he said.

"I know," Sarah said. She began to say something, but Casey chose this moment to poke his head out his door.

"Walker! Bartowski!" he shouted. "General Beckman has a mission! Let's go!" He glared at them for a few seconds. They didn't move, and he slammed the door shut again after muttering something unintelligible and most likely insulting under his breath.

Chuck sighed. "Well, that was quick."

Sarah hit his arm lightly. "You didn't think she would give you a break just because you were in the hospital, did you?"

Chuck shrugged. "I can always dream, can't I?" Sarah laughed and took his hand.

"Let's go, you nerd."

"Nerd? Are you trying to insult me?" Chuck asked in mock surprise and hurt. "Sarah, I am genuinely hurt. How could you- oh wait. I am officially known as a Nerd Herd manager." He made a big show of thinking about something. "I guess I'll let it slide. This time."

Sarah raised her chin and smirked. "How kind of you." She noticed Casey watching them through the blinds of one of his windows. He scowled at her and disappeared. "Come on." She tugged on his arm. "Casey might hurt you again if we're any later."

"Just one more thing." Sarah turned to him and opened her mouth to ask what, but Chuck swooped in and kissed her. Her question died in her throat and she relaxed into him, responding slowly and enthusiastically. She put her hands on his chest, and he placed his larger hands on her hips. They stayed that way for a few seconds, then he pulled back, grinning stupidly.

"I am never going to get used to that," he said, his breathing somewhat erratic. His eyes were lit up happily. Sarah loved seeing him like that.

"Me either," she replied quietly. She placed a one last soft kiss on his lips and tugged on his hand again. "Come on, 'Agent Carmichael'. Casey has probably exploded by now." Chuck laughed and let her lead him into Casey's house, and soon, what had happened in the courtyard was pushed from his mind by the thoughts of preventing the untimely deaths of several government officials.

But he promised himself that they would continue that courtyard conversation later, perhaps with more food, more wine, and less Casey. That would be nice. It would be like a date that any regular person would go on. Almost normal, but he knew that, somehow, it would be ruined by either mad men wielding guns, Casey wielding guns, or some mix of the two. Honestly, there would probably be a bomb or two mixed in, maybe a hostage situation tossed in just for the fun of it, and a couple near death experiences. Add in a random smuggling ring somehow connected with the case, an unrepentant baddie in jail, and an install for the Nerd Herd, and you would have a somewhat normal day for Chuck Bartowski. Then he could lean back and wait for the next round of "Try To Be Normal But Fail Because You're Actually An Undercover CIA Agent". It would probably make a good tv show. Maybe with a shorter, easier name, it could catch on.

Chuck glanced over at Sarah as they neared Casey, who was watching General Beckman talking on her usual screen. Sarah caught him looking and raised an eyebrow. Her blue eyes sparkled as she stifled a grin, and she turned to look back at the General, shaking her head slightly in amusement.

As they came down the stairs and stood by the table, General Beckman noticed Chuck and said, "Ah, thank you for joining us, Mr. Bartowski." She then immediately dropped the polite facade and delivered a sound scolding for leaving the car and causing such a ruckus, although she did compliment him on his scar. Chuck smiled awkwardly at that last part, but remained, for the most part, apologetic.

After she regained her composure, the General congratulated Casey and Sarah one final time for taking care of the situation, then she brought up a picture of a European man in fancy jeans and a silk button-down, leaning on an incredibly expensive Cadillac. General Beckman revealed him as a member of a rival spy agency who was coming through Burbank in a few days. Chuck flashed on him instantly and recognized him as a well-renowned sniper from Lithuania known simply as Velnias in his native country. After he relayed this information, the General began to briefly inform them of the nefarious plots the Lithuanian was suspected of, and what they were expected to do. When she signed off, Casey took control and began walking them through a detailed plan of infiltrating Velnias's hotel, which included a very loud emphasis on Chuck staying in the car. Without the extremely explicit curse words, he basically told Chuck to keep his sorry butt in the goddamn car or Casey would have no choice but to tie him to one of his targets and fill him with lead.

Sarah never let go of Chuck's hand throughout the entire ordeal and walked him back out to his house afterward, where they said goodbye. Well, they did a bit more than that, but there's no need for specifics. Spies do get some privacy sometimes.

Suffice it to say, Chuck would never be normal, but at least he could get the girl.

 **Okay. How was that? Was the ending horribly anticlimactic? I didn't know if I should send them off to his room or off on another mission. I figured the second choice would be the less messy of the two, so that's what I went with. Please, tell me if you enjoyed it and if there are grammar/spelling mistakes that I overlooked. Or plotholes. Yeesh, that would be bad. Actually, I don't know if I want you to warn me of those. That would mean that I would have to go back and fix stuff. I'm too lazy, dang it! Let a barbarian have his rest!**

 **Thank you for any and all support you may have given over the past few weeks. I know this was kind of short, but it's my first story. I didn't really want it to be a massive story of a hundred chapters and fifty thousand words each. If I started one of those, I would probably never end up finishing it. There's nothing wrong with writing entire books on Fanfiction, of course, but I don't do it. I talk too much, don't I? Crud.**

 **If you enjoyed it, I'm glad you did. If you didn't, I would love to know why. And if you want me to write another story, tell me so, and I might just do so. Who knows? But thanks for finishing this story with me. I've had a great time (hopefully you did too), and I hope to do it again. Thanks for all your support, and I hope to see you the next time Chuck gets himself in trouble (which should be soon).**


End file.
